


Love Me Like I'm Not Made of Stone

by oyhumbug



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Humor, PTSD, Romance, alternative history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 02:03:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1670651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oyhumbug/pseuds/oyhumbug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When meeting Felicity, Oliver has a flashback. Afterwards, he flees, leaving behind his 'latted' laptop. She further investigates on her own, but lurking underneath everything else is Felicity's concern for Oliver. Just like with anything that matters to her – she doesn't know why he matters but he does, she can't let the episode – what she fears to be PTSD – go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Ladies and Gents,
> 
> So, a new story. This is the promised, lighter ficlet that is meant to break up the heaviness that is _And Then a Butterfly Flapped Its Wings_. It'll be five parts in length (hence, why I call it a ficlet; I don't know how others describe a short fic.), and I already have two chapters written. Upcoming posts will have visuals. (If you're following my fanfic board on Pinterest, you'll have already gotten a sneak peak, because I work so far ahead.) Speaking of working ahead, I also have the next piece to _The Devil Series_ written, too, but it'll be a couple weeks before that gets posted. I'm trying to keep a stockpile of chapters so that I can still post even if I have an ultra-busy week. Plus, once I'm finished posting old stories (for other fandoms) that I never did share, I'll be focusing on Olicity only and posting more for them then, too. Finally, the title of this piece comes from Lykke Li's song by the same name. If you're familiar with the tune, this story isn't as dark, though the sentiments fit, and I really loved the title. Hopefully, you will, too. (And check out the song if you haven't heard it. Lykke Li is amazing.)
> 
> Thanks and enjoy,  
> Charlynn

 

**Love Me Like I'm Not Made of Stone**

**Part One**

She should have known it was going too well.  
  
Felicity's Law and all.  
  
She hadn't rambled (much). She had proven why she was the IT girl recommended for the job. The task had been a nice divergence from the norm. He had even given her a little of his (reputedly) patented flirty-flirt, and she had intellectually teased him back. Lightly. Because, seriously, who didn't know Hamlet? Even if you'd never _studied_ Shakespeare... or read his play about the Danish prince, there were like a kajillion movie adaptation. And, hello: _The Lion King_!  
  
But, anyway, yeah... From a scale of 'I have to move to a new zip code far, far, far away so that I never accidentally see you again' and 'we're totally going to get married and have lots and lots of babies together,' meeting Oliver Queen had fallen somewhere around a six – the 'we'll be casual, wave and say _hey_ when I see you friends' level. Like Felicity had said, it had been going well.  
  
It's all fun and games, however, until someone (Felicity) feels up their boss (Oliver Queen).  
  
The first part (the fun and games part... emphasis on the fun), though, was the fact that she started talking before she even realized where her hands were. “Wow. Usually, there's at least dinner before a guy gets me on my back.”  
  
Nothing. Silence.  
  
“That was a joke.”  
  
Crickets.  
  
“Seriously, I'm not that easy. Well, if a good red wine is involved, there's a possibility that I'll be that easy, but, really, I've heard the stories. _Your_ stories. You know... the ones about you. So, you can't hold that against me.” _Though she certainly wouldn't object if he continued holding himself against her._ “And, oh my god, I totally just sexually harassed you.” _Out loud_ and _in her head._  
  
And _that's_ when Felicity noticed that her arms were wrapped around Oliver Queen, her hands molded to the curves of his butt – his, albeit, toit as a tiger... and not one relaxed in his cozy tiger bed... butt. Dropping her arms like they were hot, she then smacked the left against her desk chair and the right against her cubicle wall. _“Ow!”_  
  
Still, there was zilch from the pretty, pretty playboy sprawled on top of her.  
  
Okay, so maybe not _nothing_. If anything, when she cried out, Oliver seemed to tense up even more... and that was saying something, because Felicity was pretty sure _she_ was vibrating with all the tension radiating from the man who had just tackled her. Or maybe that was lust...?  
  
“So... this isn't awkward. At all.”  
  
Felicity promised herself that she wouldn't make any more quips (or cop any more feels... and they were really nice feels) until she figured out just how exactly she had ended up on the floor and, here was the more important part of the story, underneath Oliver Queen.  
  
They had been conversing... as in, back and forth. She'd say something; he'd say something. It had been nice – not feeling compelled to dominate the conversation for once. (And, by dominate, she meant take over and bulldoze with her babbling.) Oliver had just finished telling her that he was, apparently, allergic to Bachelors degrees when her cell had rang... which had been embarrassing enough, because, hello (and not hello because she actually answered the phone but hello because, well, duh), talk about unprofessional. Oh, also, she couldn't forget the fact that it had been her mother calling. Again, not that she had answered, but Felicity had chosen the gunshots and cash register bell portion from the chorus of MIA's “Paper Planes” for a reason: she needed a warning when it was Mama Smoak on the other end of the line.  
  
So, evidently, it had been the phone call that had brought out Oliver's inner Tommy Conlon... and, yeah, maybe his outer, too, because there was one ab!, two abs!, three abs!, four abs!, five abs!, six abs!, seven abs!, eight abs!, and two very delicious hip bones pressing down upon her rapidly yet shallowly breathing frame.  
  
“Sorry about... that. My phone. Ringing. My mother. Gah. A girl moves about as far away from her mother as she can without needing a passport and Visa, and she still has to apologize for the woman who raised her. But my mother... well, she's my mother, and she's never quite mastered the whole 'working 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin' concept. So, she calls. At inappropriate times. And it's never enough to warrant turning my phone completely off at work, but it is enough that I use a special ring tone for her. You know,” she mimicked holding a gun up to her temple and squeezing a really inaccurate thumb trigger. Oliver flinched; Felicity rushed to cover... whatever she had done or said wrong... with words. Again. “But, hey, bright side! At least you should have known that song, because I'm pretty sure it came out before your whole half a decade of role playing _Gilligan's Island_.”  
  
After that _spectacular_ monologue which Felicity would never be able to take back (well, unless someone managed to actually figure out how to time travel), she laughed nervously. That laughter turned to a quiet moan of mortification, however – a moan that was only stymied by Felicity sinking her teeth into her bottom lip. It was only when she went to shutter her eyes as well that she finally started to see what was staring her in the face. Literally. Because Oliver Queen was unflinchingly, unblinkingly zigzagging his own gaze between her and their surroundings... well, as much of their surroundings as they could see from underneath her desk. He was pale, and he was skittish, and he was tense.  
  
And he was totally in the middle of some kind of panic attack or flashback episode.  
  
“Hey.” She softened her voice, tried to make it as soothing as possible. To her own ears, Felicity thought she sounded scared, though – timid and unsure of herself. “You're okay.” Her hands lifted in accompaniment, arms wrapping around him once more... only, this time, she didn't grab his butt. Instead, she comfortingly laid her smooth palms against his face, allowing her fingers to stroke his stubbled jaw, to brush against and comb through his short-cropped hair. “I'm okay.” His skin was cold to the touch, his breathing harsh and choppy. “You're safe. We're safe here.” Slowly but surely, she felt Oliver come back to the present.  
  
And then he was gone.  
  
He moved so quickly – both off of her and away – that Felicity just reacted, springing upwards and forwards to go after him only for her head to connect with the underside of her desk. She was still grumbling and rubbing the sore spot by the time she managed to roll her way to her feet (seriously, pencil skirts were not meant for horizontal gymnastics on the floor with Oliver Queen), but he was long gone. Like Road Runner gone. Like... Felicity found herself checking the floor for tread marks gone.  
  
She didn't find any.  
  
What she did find, however, when she looked about her small cubicle was the laptop – the bullet riddled laptop – that Oliver had _spilled a latte on_ before bringing it to her. The fact that he would leave without taking the computer with him told her just how much he had been affected by... whatever it was that had just passed between them. Feeling unsure of herself or what she wanted to do next, Felicity simply allowed her gaze to ping-pong back and forth between the laptop and her empty doorway... as though she just expected him to show up there again. Or maybe she was willing him to.  
  
She had only come face to face once in her life with Oliver Queen, but the moment would be forever etched upon her memory. And she wanted so much for it to be repeated. If she could just sit down once more, get lost in her work, and, then bam!, there'd he be, she would. But Felicity knew it wouldn't matter how many times she tried to force a time loop, Oliver was gone. In his wake, she was left with not only her worry for him but also the mystery he had so unceremoniously dropped into her lap.  
  
And she hated mysteries.  
  
So, when she felt her gaze being pulled back to her monitor, she allowed it to wander over the blueprints of the Exchange Building. She allowed her foot to reach back and hook around one of the legs of her chair. She allowed her suddenly boneless body to collapse onto the seat, and she allowed her mind to get lost in her work. It was much safer focused there than it was thinking about Oliver Queen. Oh, she had no doubt that she'd go back to pondering the enigmatic man again – and soon, but computers were much easier to understand than people, and she felt more comfortable breaking down the puzzle before her than she was Oliver's psyche.  
  
So, Felicity did what Felicity did best: she hacked. She allowed what she had recovered from the laptop to speak to her, and she followed the clues of code and logic. The fact that the blueprints were for the very same building where the auction for Unidac Industries was being held and that Warren Patel was one of Queen Consolidated's competitors for the seismic research company led Felicity to question why Mr. Patel would want to know the layout of the building where he would simply need to raise a paddle, not win a scavenger hunt, in order to procure Unidac. The blueprints were fishy, but so, too, was the fact that two other competitors had ended up dead that week. One death – one murder – would have been a strange coincidence, but two? Two screamed of something more sinister, something that one might just need blueprints for.  
  
Felicity only felt a temporary qualm about using her work computer to gain access to Patel's bank records, but that qualm was quickly overridden by her need for the truth, by her need for answers. Plus, she rationalized her behavior by promising to go back afterwards and erase her footsteps. Besides, there was no reason for anyone to suspect QC of anything nefarious, because, as far as the rest of the world was concerned, the auction was nothing more but a business formality, and no one would ever suspect her of doing anything nefarious for QC in regards to the auction, because she was IT, not Applied Sciences. Added to that was the fact that she was technically off the clock – her work day having ended sometime while Oliver Queen had been laying on top of her... which made her feel a whole heck of a lot better about that whole sexual harassment concern.  
  
Once she justified hacking Patel's bank records, it was a slippery slope into hacking the SCPD's case files on the two dead competitors and several federal databases as she looked for an assassin who was known for using bullets laced with a poison called curare. As the pieces slowly (okay, it would have been slowly if it had been anyone else assembling the puzzle) came together, Felicity started to see exactly what Oliver Queen had unwittingly – or, judging by the fact that he had brought her a shot-up laptop _and_ clearly had some mad ninja skills... not to mention an emotional mind field inside of his head, perhaps not so unwittingly – brought to her doorstep.  
  
Er, cubicle-step?  
  
Anyway, it only took her a few indecisive seconds of biting her bottom lip in thought before she detached the laptop from her desktop, shoved it underneath her arm like a clutch, and slipped out into the dark hallway. While she wasn't unaware of how different QC felt at night after everyone else but the cleaning crew and bare-bones security team went home, she felt weird for the first time as she made her way through the dim building. Even though she tried to look as normal as possible – after all, it wasn't strange for her to stay after-hours to finish up a project, Felicity knew the constant checking over her shoulders and the frantic, rapid steps she was taking made her look guilty. But she couldn't help them. It wasn't until she was locked inside an Applied Sciences lab several floors below the IT Department that she took her first full breath since leaving her office.  
  
After taking the sample swabs she needed from the bullet holes and getting the tests started that she knew would only confirm what she already considered fact, Felicity realized that, not only would she have time to kill while she waited for the results, but that she hadn't thought past solving the mystery. Once she had her proof, then what? Answers would cure her curiosity, but they would do nothing to help the situation, to help those in danger. And in danger many people certainly were. The last thing she wanted to do was leave her evidence behind, but she was working under a very finite timetable, and, though Applied Sciences had just about every gadget or toy a girl could usually want or have a use for, she was pretty sure they didn't stock up on burner phones.  
  
While Warren Patel might be stupid enough to not cover up his tracks, Felicity Smoak was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them.  
  
As she quickly assembled a plan – burner phone, read results, make the call, search out Walter before it was too late and he left for the auction, she cleaned up after herself. She wiped down any surfaces she might have touched – including the laptop – before putting gloves on. While she knew that, in doing so, she might be erasing other fingerprints – fingerprints that would be valuable to an official police investigation, she could not be connected back to an assassin's laptop, and she was pretty sure Oliver Queen didn't need that kind of press either. Urinating on cop cars was one thing; aiding and abetting a poison bullet-wielding murderer was another. She then put a clean pair of gloves in her pocket for later when she came back and used one of the Applied Sciences computers to erase any video surveillance of her late afternoon trip to the department _and_ the fact that she had erased the evidence in the first place. She'd have to repeat her actions again later (and burn both sets of gloves), but Felicity wasn't willing to turn the cameras off just in case someone slipped inside of the lab while she was gone.  
  
With one last glance to make sure the tests were running smoothly, she slipped silently out of the room and back into the dim hallways, this time finding her movements far more surreptitious than before.  
  
Valerie Flame would be so proud.

 

…

 

Felicity knocked hesitantly upon the door. “Mr. Steele?”  
  
Everything indicated that QC's CEO was still at work – the executive elevator was waiting for him at the top floor, security was still stationed outside of his office, but it was late – nearly time for the auction to start... if she hadn't managed to stop it from happening all together, and the entire floor was bathed in shadows, the lights turned off only for the emergency exit signs and any outside illumination which penetrated the tinted glass walls to break through the inky blackness. As Felicity glanced around the room she hoped to enter, however, she didn't spot anyone. Granted, that could have had something to do with her less than sniper-grade vision, but even she wasn't _that_ blind. If Walter was in the building....  
  
“Yes, what is it, Miss Smoak?”  
  
“Oh!” She jumped, startled, as Walter spun around in his desk chair to face her. Automatically, her hands sought each other and started to wring together in anxiety. “You're here?” Clearing her throat, she tried to find the courage and conviction which had been piloting her actions for the past two and half hours, but all she felt was nervous. It should have been comforting in its familiarity, but it wasn't. “I mean, of course you're here. It's your office. And I'm here now, too... which no one knows about, because I purposefully avoided the guards, and so this is all starting to feel a little too clandestine. And, oh my god, it's like I'm Deep Throat.”  
  
She flushed scarlet in mortification and rushed to explain. “I meant Mark Felt. You know... like in _All The King's Men_ , which, if you think about it, is a very sexist title. Just like _Humpty Dumpty_ always bothered me as a kid. I mean, the king gave his horses a chance to put the clumsy egg back together again but not any of the women? But, then again, kings often prove themselves to be horrible leaders. After all, everyone knows that women are better at putting things together than men. And horses. If putting together computers were an Olympic event, I'd have so many gold necklaces, Mr. T would be jealous.” Shaking away her thoughts, Felicity tried to bring herself back to the topic at hand. “But, yeah, Mark Felt, not the porn character. Not that there's anything wrong with pornographic material. Or right. I mean, when it comes to porn, I'm Switzerland. Actually, I'm not, because I just don't get its appeal, but to each their own, right? And oh my god, why aren't you stopping me?” Taking a deep breath, she mumbled to herself, “why doesn't anyone in your family stop me?,” to which she noticed Mr. Steele quirk an intrigued brow at her, because, apparently, Felicity just failed at life. Not only couldn't she comport herself in a professional manner around her superiors, but she also couldn't mumble. “Well, that's just fan-freaking-tastic,” she grumbled under her breath.  
  
Finally, Mr. Steele seemed to take pity on her and put her out of her misery. “Is there something I can do for you, Miss Smoak?”  
  
“Actually, I'm here to do you.” Her eyes widened, her mouth opened in humiliation and abject shock at how appallingly her brain managed to string together sentences, and she cringed. “I meant that I'm here to do for you – to do a favor for you... and why does that still sound like a proposition?” This time, she closed her eyes and curled her hands into fists, hoping the bite of her manicured nails into her palms would help to center her. And curb her tongue. “You're going to have to give me a few seconds here.” After those three seconds of silence, she amended her request. “Actually, make that ten.”  
  
So, it was after ten _more_ seconds that Felicity once again found herself looking upon the very confused and yet slightly amused face of Walter Steele. Before she could dig her own hole any deeper, she blurted out, “I don't think you should buy Unidac Industries. In fact, I know you shouldn't.”  
  
Amusement vanished (or perhaps that was banished), Walter regarded her closely. “Please explain yourself, Miss Smoak.”  
  
“Three words for you: curare laced bullets.”  
  
“While I appreciate your brevity, I'm afraid that I'm going to need a little bit more to go on.”  
  
“Right,” she nodded, and then pushed up her glasses. “As I'm sure you're aware, two of your competitors for the seismic research company have been found dead this week. However, what I highly doubt the SCPD has made you aware of is that the bullets that were used to take them out were laced with a skeletal-muscle-relaxant drug that, when given in fatal doses, causes respiratory failure. So, even if an assassin misses his target and doesn't get off a killshot, a curare laced bullet hitting someone anywhere is still a _deadshot_. Hence, the assassin's street name, because that's exactly what killed your two competitors, Mr. Steel: an assassin – an assassin that was hired by yet another competitor. And, maybe it's just me, but if there are people that desperate to get their hands on Unidac Industries, then maybe this company does a little more than just seismic research – something along the lines of being illegal... like we're not talking jaywalking illegal but murder, illegal and, frankly, I don't know about you, but that's not something I want the company I work for associated with. So, yeah,” Felicity took a deep breath, lifting her chin to prove just how firmly she believed in what she was saying. “I don't think you should purchase Unidac Industries tonight. Or any night. In fact, I think it might be a good idea if you skipped the auction all together.”  
  
Realizing that she needed to confess the one piece of information she hadn't been able to figure out, she shuffled her ballet flat encased feet. “I, uh, I'm not sure who the next target is. It might be you; it might not be. But, even if you're not the next name on the assassin's list, I don't think it's very safe to be anywhere with poison laced bullets flying through the air with the greatest of ease. Maybe if I had more time to sift through and follow the clues, then I'd be able to tell you more, but I had very little information to start with and only so much time. Speaking of which,” she segued, looking pointedly at the clock hanging on the wall. “The auction is due to start in fifteen minutes.”  
  
“Just... let me make a call,” Mr. Steele told her, already moving towards his desk phone. “My family was supposed to be meeting me at the event...” His words trailed off as he dialed. Wanting to give him privacy, wanting to escape, and, speaking of his family, wanting to skip that second pesky thing that was bothering her, Felicity hitched a thumb over her shoulder to indicate that she was just going to leave. “Not so fast, Miss Smoak,” Walter's voice – his CEO voice – stopped her cold. “We still have much to discuss.”  
  
Yeah, she was afraid of that.  
  
So, while Walter talked to his family, to his wife – Mrs. Queen... er, Mrs. Steele... Mrs. Queele/Mrs. Steen?, Felicity wandered the spacious office, trying to appear inconspicuous and like she couldn't hear every single word her boss was uttering to his spouse. However, in her agitation and apprehension, she was the complete opposite of discreet as she kept bumping into furniture – stubbing toes, banging shins, catching her misnamed funny bones – and then muttering exclamations of discomfort and pain afterwards. Both regretfully (because it meant Walter's attention would once more be solely focused on her) and thankfully (because she could stop her one woman crusade to make bruising a fashion statement), Mr. Steele made his call brief.  
  
A pointed clearing of his throat had Felicity spinning around to face him once more. “Now, Miss Smoak, would you care to explain to me how this v _ery little information_ landed in your lap.”  
  
“Actually, it landed on my desk,” she corrected him without thinking. “Don't you think my lap would have been a little forward.” Realizing her mistake – because, deserved or not, she wasn't going to tell her boss about his step-son's involvement... whatever that may be... in the situation, Felicity tried to back-track. “And you meant that as a simple turn of phrase.” She wrinkled her face up into an understanding expression of comprehension. “I gotcha.”  
  
“Yes, well, be that as it may,” Walter said warily, watching her closely. Felicity gulped. “That still doesn't explain how the information 'landed on your desk' _or_ how you knew how to... investigate it.”  
  
She aimed for carefree and dismissive. “Really, do the how's even matter? What's important is that you're still alive. I saved you. I'm a hero.” In hindsight, Felicity realized that the hero comment might have taken things a little too far. But in for a penny, in for a pound, right?  
  
“Miss Smoak.” And there was that blasted CEO voice again.  
  
Under pressure, she just blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “I can't tell you.” At Walter's raised brow, she explained further. “I can't tell you how I came by this information. I... it was shared with me in confidence, and, if I broke that confidence for you, how could you or anyone else ever trust me to keep a confidence in the future. I might not be a lot of things, Mr. Steele – concise being one of them, but I am trustworthy. And I really hope that you can appreciate this and not fire me.”  
  
He appraised her for several, agonizingly tense seconds. Finally, with a quirk of his very stoic, very British lips, Walter quipped, “well, as you reminded me just moments ago, you did save my life, so I guess I can overlook your unwillingness to answer my question. But just this once.”  
  
She knew he was teasing her, but she still released a relieved sigh. “Thank you.”  
  
“However, I'm still curious as to how you knew what to do with information.”  
  
“I don't like mysteries, and I'm good with computers.” Felicity thought over her explanation, approved of it, and then nodded once to show that she was satisfied with what she had said.  
  
“Care to expand upon that?”  
  
“Like _really_ good,” Felicity returned.  
  
“Yes, well, apparently, you're also really good at being discreet and evasive – two qualities that I'm not unfamiliar with, nor unappreciative of.” For the first time since she had entered his office, Walter stood. “I'm assuming you also handled this knowledge responsibly, Miss Smoak?”  
  
Brow furrowed, she questioned, “I'm sorry?”  
  
“You shared your findings with the police, and you made sure that you covered your tracks, yes?”  
  
“Oh, yeah. No problems there. Burner phone? Check. Paid for with cash? Check. Paid for while wearing a hat and sunglasses? Check. Anonymous call to the authorities that did not last longer than thirty seconds and was placed in a location not anywhere near QC or my apartment? Check. Virtual footsteps erased? Um, hello? Computer genius here, remember?”  
  
While Felicity's face burned in embarrassment for what must have been... okay, she was pretty sure she had resembled a tomato during her entire conversation with her boss, Walter just chuckled... in that dry, British way. (Why did she appreciate that type of humor when it was on her television – or computer – screen, but now it just made her squirm?) “Well,” Walter prompted, recapturing her attention. “If there's nothing else, Miss Smoak...”  
  
“Oliver!”  
  
Well, so much for _not_ mentioning her still baffling encounter with his step-son. And, really, did she have to scream his name like she was calling it out during....  
  
With wide eyes, Felicity forcefully redirected her thoughts and tried to distract herself. “I met him today.”  
  
“Yes, I know. Oliver told me that he was having some technology issues, and I recommended you to help him.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“I assume you were able to?”  
  
She averted her gaze, twisted her fingers, and bit her bottom lip. “Uh... sort of?”  
  
“Well, I highly doubt Oliver could have done anything to his computer that someone of your – what was it? – _genius_ skill set couldn't assist him with.”  
  
In her rush to explain, in her complete bafflement in how to explain, Felicity spoke quickly. “There maybe, sort of, kind of, might have been an... incident.”  
  
Mr. Steele rounded his desk, coming to stand closer to her. They were still several feet apart, but his proximity was still too much. She felt crowded. So, she took several, stumbling steps backwards. “What kind of _incident_ Miss Smoak?”  
  
And then it all just came pouring out. “I'm not sure. I've never... had something like that happen to me before. He was there, and then he wasn't. It was like... he was suddenly somewhere completely different and like he had no idea that I was still there with him. Only, he still reacted to my presence. It was weird. And kind of scary... not in an 'oh my god, I'm in danger' kind of scary, but I was worried for him, you know? And it didn't just last a few seconds either. I had enough time to completely humiliate myself several times before I was able to bring him out of... whatever it was. A flashback, maybe?”  
  
Concerned, Walter asked her, “were you hurt?”  
  
“Yeah, _so_ not what I was feeling.” Her boss coughed in uncomfortable awareness, and Felicity quickly blurted out. “I think he might be suffering from PTSD.”  
  
She saw recognition flicker across his gaze before he shuttered his expression once again. Buttoning his suit jacket, Walter, with that one, simple motion, told her that their meeting was over. “Yes, well, thank you for bringing this to my attention, Miss Smoak. I apologize on my step-son's behalf for any... distress this incident might have caused you, and I ask for your discretion.”  
  
“Yes, of... of course,” Felicity stumbled over her words, feeling thrown by the rapid shift in mood. Maybe Mr. Steele could turn his emotions off with just a flick of a switch (or, in his case, a button), but she couldn't, and, in the meantime, she was left scrambling to catch up.  
  
“Good night, then.”  
  
Dismissed. She had been thoroughly and succinctly dismissed.  
  
Rather than trying to understand _anything_ that had just happened, Felicity turned on her heels and quickly left.

 


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [VISUALS!](http://www.pinterest.com/oycharlynnrose/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words-fic-visuals/) \- See what Felicity's wearing. :-) (Warning: I work ahead, so there are visuals for upcoming posts as well, so, if you don't want to spoil yourself, be careful.)

**Part Two**

“We have a problem.”  
  
Even with being the one who had called their impromptu, late night meeting and speeding his entire way to the foundry, Diggle had still managed to beat Oliver there thanks to how far outside the city the Queen mansion was located. This irked him, but, for now, there was nothing he could do about it. The Oliver Queen that everyone expected him to be would never willingly leave the lap of luxury, not to mention the servants who did everything for him, of his family, childhood home. Tossing his leather jacket on the desk, Oliver took his stance – legs braced apart, arms folded over his chest – across from Digg.  
  
The ex-military man seemingly waited him out before finally responding, “you don't say.” The tone was sarcastic, pithy, and Oliver found himself immediately annoyed. The last thing he needed in that moment was someone's attempt at dry humor, but it was too late to _un_ tell Diggle about who he was, and Oliver was self-aware enough to admit, at least to himself, that he needed help. Especially now. “From where I'm sitting,” John continued. And he was doing just that – relaxed and reclined in Oliver's desk chair. “ _We_ have more than one.”  
  
While there was a lot that his driver was aware of, this – their current situation – wasn't one of them. Or, at least, it shouldn't be. Oliver found his brow furrowing in consternation. There was no way that Diggle could know about Walter, or Felicity, or the auction and everything that was supposed to have gone down there that evening – _supposed to have_ because the auction had been canceled. Even with his plans for the evening foiled, Oliver had proceeded with at least one part of his strategy: bringing Digg into his secret. While the other man hadn't reacted well to say the least, Oliver wasn't behind bars, and, when he had called for Digg to meet him at the foundry mere hours after the two had parted with so much unresolved and unsaid between them, John had come. It wasn't a screaming 'I see your vision, and I join you in your mission,' but it was a start; it was something he could work with.  
  
As if reading his silence and perturbation as permission to continue with his little one-man comedy routine, Digg remarked, “let's start with the fact that I was in bed and watching SportsCenter when you called. Do rich people not have a sense of boundaries... let alone courtesy?”  
  
Oliver chose to ignore the question and, instead, focused on the statement. “I didn't realize you were a sports fan, Digg,” though there was a complete lack of interest or patience to his tone.  
  
“Man, I have a penis and a pulse. Of course, I like sports.”  
  
“I find them... pointless.”  
  
“We really need to find you a hobby... which brings me to _our_ second problem: the fact that I just said _we_ , because I don't know who's crazier in this situation: you... for obvious reasons... or me for going along with you.”  
  
Oliver exhaled, nodding once in acknowledgement. “So, that means you're in?”  
  
“This means that I hope this gig comes with good health insurance, because I need my head examined.” Becoming more serious, Diggle added, “this means that I'm at least not out.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
“Which brings us full circle and back to our biggest problem of all: the fact that I just agreed to be party to you running around town in spandex, shooting arrows into people.”  
  
He frowned. “I don't wear spandex.”  
  
“Out of everything I just said, _that's_ the part you focus on?”  
  
Tilting his head to the side, Oliver observed the man across from him. “Is that what the reports actually say – that I wear spandex?”  
  
Diggle stared back, unimpressed. “You can take the stupid idiot to an island, but an island can't take the stupid idiot out of the man.”  
  
“I wasn't taken to Lian Yu, Digg; I was washed up there.”  
  
Finally, John exploded, “Oliver!”   
  
And, with that explosion, he lost any sense of humor he might have been experiencing. “Look, I called you here because this problem? It's serious. I need your help.”  
  
“I have a feeling that, with you, it's always going to be serious.” Rolling his eyes and standing up, Diggle mimicked Oliver's pose. “So, what's up? What was so important that you felt the need to...”  
  
Interrupting him, Oliver revealed, “there's this girl....”  
  
And Diggle, in response, just about lost it with laughter. Shaking his head in amusement, he ribbed, “there always is.” Sobering, he accused, “let me guess: Laurel Lance.” When he glared at him, balking, John held up his hands in defense. “Hey, you're not the only one of us who did research on the other. And, besides, you haven't exactly made your... preoccupation... a secret either, not even from the man you've been trying to dodge since you met him.”  
  
Through gritted teeth, he refuted, “this isn't about Laurel.”  
  
“Well, then, if this is about some other girl you've slept with, I'm afraid I haven't even made a dent in that list yet.”  
  
It was Oliver's turn to lose his patience, to erupt in barely restrained frustration. “Diggle!”  
  
“Alright man,” his driver conceded, holding out his arms in a placating manner. “Just start from the beginning and tell me what's going on.”  
  
As Oliver started to talk – to really talk, he also started to pace. With tight, agitated steps, he stalked the width of the basement. “This afternoon, I... I asked someone on the outside for help. It was tech related, and, even before the island, I never had the patience for such things. I know enough to get by, but this....” He paused, pinched the bridge of his nose, and then sighed. “This was more complicated than I could even attempt to understand and the information I needed from it too important to not... try. So, I asked for help. Walter recommended her – said she was the best.”  
  
“Walter... as in your step-father,” Digg questioned. There was no judgement to his tone, which he was grateful for, just curiosity and an intelligence that was trying to sort through the layers of words Oliver left unsaid. “What exactly did you tell him?”  
  
“Nothing. Just that I needed some help with my computer.”  
  
“And this girl,” John prompted. “When you went to her, what did you tell her?”  
  
Meeting his gaze, Oliver answered, “I told her that I had spilled a latte on my laptop and needed help retrieving its information.”  
  
“But I'm guessing there was no latte.”  
  
“Nope. Just bullet holes,” he confirmed.   
  
Diggle rolled his eyes. “Of course there were. And, of course, a girl smart enough for your CEO of a step-father to recommend would not be foolish enough to not know the difference.”  
  
“Digg, none of this matters. You're not getting the point.”  
  
“Oh, no,” John argued. “This matters, Oliver. This matters, because, evidently, you can't lie to save to our own ass... and I mean that literally. But, now, it's not just your ass that's on the line but mine, too, and I refuse to go down, because you crumble at the first sign of dimples and pretty blue eyes.”  
  
Vexed by Diggle's attitude and also by what he was accusing him of, on edge, and running from words that were hitting a little too close to home, Oliver yelled, “Walter knows!” The air between them stilled, became so silent only the rain dripping through the leaking roof, down through the abandoned foundry, and into the perpetually damp basement could be heard. “I think he knows about me, and I think he found out, because _she_ figured it out and told him.”  
  
“I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, Oliver, but you need to start at the beginning.”  
  
He sighed, closing his eyes in an attempt to center his turbulent emotions, his need to act rather than discuss. But it was his impetuosity which had gotten him – them – into their current position in the first place. Oliver couldn't just go out and beat, or shoot, or kill his current problem out of existence. He needed to think, and he needed Diggle's help, and he needed both – and fast – if he was going to come up with a plan that might actually have a prayer in hell of working. “Earlier... after you and I...”  
  
“Talked,” Digg supplied, leaving what had passed between them before that night vague and simplified, something else Oliver was thankful for.  
  
“ … I went home, only to find Walter waiting up for me. We... talked, too.”  
  
“And he told you that he knew that you were the vigilante?”  
  
“Not exactly,” Oliver hedged.  
  
“Well, then, what exactly did he say,” John pressed.  
  
Turning to walk away, putting his back towards the other man, Oliver said, “look, it's more about what he didn't say.” Before his driver could say anything in response, he continued, “there's... something happened with Felicity.”  
  
“Felicity,” Digg repeated. “This is the girl from this afternoon?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“So, then, what happened with her?”  
  
“It doesn't matter,” he immediately refuted. When John snorted in argument, Oliver emphasized, “I said it doesn't matter, Diggle, so leave it.”  
  
“Oliver, I'm trying to be accommodating here – I really am, but you have to give me something to work with. You're talking in circles, and it feels like, whenever I even get close to what the actual problem is, you shut me down.”  
  
Spinning back around, he practically sprinted across the room so that he was standing before the desk once again. Dropping his fists onto the metal, Oliver talked over the rattling computer equipment. “Something happened with Felicity that made me leave. Without the laptop. The next thing I know? The police shut down the auction for Unidac Industries, meaning I lost my chance to go after my target. And then Walter's talking to me, doing everything in his power to defend and protect Felicity.”  
  
Confused, John asked, “what?”  
  
“She's the only one who could have figured out what the information on that laptop meant, and I know for a fact that she went to Walter with what she figured out, because, before the auction could be shut down by the cops, Walter called my mother and told her that he wasn't attending and that he was pulling Queen Consolidated out of the bidding. But, when Walter later talked to me about Felicity, he didn't mention any of this. All he could talk about was what had happened between us and how good of a person Felicity is. It was the fact that he purposefully didn't accuse me while defending her that makes me think that, not only did she figure out who I am, but that she also told him as well.”  
  
Digg whistled out emphatically. “You, my friend, are up shit creek without a paddle.”  
  
“Well, then, I hope you know how to swim, Diggle, because, if I go down, you're going down with me.”  
  
That sobered the other man up rather quickly. “I haven't done anything, Oliver.”  
  
“You haven't done anything _yet_ , but I think I have a plan.” And he did. While explaining the problem and tap dancing around the incident with Felicity from in her office earlier that day, Oliver had started to realize what he could exploit to alter the situation – both to fix the predicament at hand and to turn it into an advantage. “I'm going to need your help.”  
  
“I don't want to know.”  
  
Ignoring his driver, he confessed, “if the auction hadn't been canceled, I was going to make it so that I was seen on camera pulling a hood from a garbage can of the same building where the vigilante was going to... make an appearance.”  
  
“Why in the hell would you do that?”  
  
“Because Detective Lance won't let go of his suspicions towards me...”  
  
“ … very accurate suspicions,” Digg interrupted, only for Oliver to talk over him.   
  
“ … until he's forced to, and I believed that the only way I could do that was for him to outright accuse me to the world and then prove him wrong.”  
  
When Diggle started to ask, “and just how were you going to do that,” Oliver looked at him pointedly, making the other man glower. “That's why you pulled me into this mess – so that I could provide you with an alibi?”  
  
“There were other reasons.”  
  
“Such as what,” John wanted to know. Oliver realized that they had switched positions. Whereas he was suddenly relaxed – a plan helped do that, John was tense and rigid – arms folded in anger across his chest, face pinched with irritation.   
  
He dismissed the request for further information, however. “Now, though, I think I can kill two birds with one stone.”  
  
“You're leaving out all the valuable information again, Oliver – information that I will, no doubt, disagree with, hence your caginess.”  
  
“I need to convince Felicity that I'm not The Hood, so that she, in turn, will convince Walter.”  
  
“We don't even know for sure that this girl figured it out... or, even if she did, if she went to your step-father.”  
  
“And she's exactly the type of girl that will kick Lance's over-protectiveness into gear.”  
  
Arguing with him, Digg chastised, “Oliver, you can't use this girl.”  
  
“I'm not going to use her, Diggle; I'm going to date her... or, at least, pretend to. Or, I don't know, maybe I'll really date her. We'll see. What matters, however, is that, while I'm flirting and seducing her out of her beliefs, I'll also be pissing Lance off to the point where he loses his cool and starts tossing around his accusations in public, because I'll make sure that he sees us together.” And, if in trying to convince Felicity that he wasn't the vigilante, he also managed to convince her (and, in turn, Walter) that he didn't have PTSD, the more power to him. “Meanwhile, you'll be making appearances around town as The Hood, clearing me not only in Felicity's and Walter's eyes but in the entire city's.”  
  
When he finished, he found Digg watching him closely – studying him, looking at him as though he were trying to read his mind or see inside of him. It was unnerving. But he refused to back down, and he definitely didn't fidget under the intense gaze. Instead, he only waited in silence for the other man to react. Finally, John did just that. “Fine.”  
  
“Fine what?”  
  
“Fine. I will help you.” Before Oliver could respond, Digg held up a stopping hand. “For the record, however, I want you to know that I think this is the stupidest plan I have ever heard of, that it will blow up in your face, and that, when it does, I will tell you that I told you so.”  
  
Despite everything his driver had just said, Oliver grinned. “Thank you – for helping.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I'm not doing it for you,” Diggle groused, picking up his own jacket and heading towards the stairs. As he made his way up them, he continued, “I'm doing it for this girl and for your step-father, because they didn't do anything to deserve having to carry the burden of your secrets.” With one last parting shot, he added, “trust me, I would know.”  
  
The door slammed behind him, but Oliver was already turning – stripping off his shirt and reaching for his bow. While he was there, he might as well get a workout in.

 

…

 

“Felicity Smoak.”  
  
He watched as he startled her – as she jumped in her chair, looked up and over from the tablet she was working on, and took note of him casually standing in her doorway – her eyes going startlingly wide, almost cartoonishly so. She hadn't even opened her mouth yet, and already he was amused by her.   
  
“Oliver Queen,” she returned. Using her feet to propel her chair, Felicity slid across the floor until she was turned around and facing him, legs tucked demurely under her table, while she had to use her forearms as friction against the desktop in order to slow down. She went for cool and collected, though her fingers absently fidgeting with her computer accessories were a dead giveaway. “I'd say I'm surprised to see you again, but... yeah, no. I'm totally surprised to see you again. In fact, I _never_ thought I'd see you again. If you accidentally saw me on the sidewalk... not that I think you actually walk around town, because that would be a traffic accident waiting to happen – can you say rubbernecking!, but, anyway, I'd expected you to turn the other way and act like I did not exist at all. If we ran into each other at the bar – wait, I take that back. I don't go to bars. Bars are bad. I don't drink. Booze is bad. Please, don't have Walter fire me.”  
  
He chuckled. Before he could say anything – reassure her, tease her, or ask her out, she was already talking again. “Oh no, you're here for _your_ ” – and she actually used hand-gestured quotation marks – “laptop, aren't you.” Oliver never had the chance to either confirm or deny her assumption before she was steamrolling over anything he might have said if given half the chance. “I destroyed it. Well, I mean I _really_ destroyed it this time. It's long gone – black hole in space gone. Not even I could find or access it again.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
“I'm so sorry. Please don't have Walter fire me... what? You're not mad?”  
  
“I'm not,” Oliver confirmed.  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
Grinning, he teased her, “did it never occur to you, Felicity, that maybe the laptop was just an excuse?”  
  
Her brow wrinkled adorably; her lips puckered in contemplation. “An excuse to do what?”  
  
“To meet you. To spend time with you. To flirt with you.”  
  
When she snorted in outright denial, it was Oliver's turn to be surprised. “Either you hit your head yesterday and I was too busy... babbling to notice, or you just stepped off the banana boat.” Felicity then flinched. “Oh. Crap. Boats. Sore subject. Sorry. Again.”  
  
Pushing off the doorframe, he strode into her office, already reassuring her. “It's alright, Felicity. And, you know, you don't have to be so nervous around me. I don't bite... unless you want me to.”  
  
She frowned. It was a cross between consternation and puzzlement. “You know, if you keep saying all of these suggestive things to a girl, she might eventually take you seriously.”  
  
“I'm hoping you will.”  
  
Apparently, she decided to err on the side of exasperation. “Oliver.”  
  
Settling onto the corner of her desk, he angled his body towards hers, hiding his humor when she slid her chair further away from him. “So, tonight – you, me, dinner, a good red wine. I heard that you _really_ like red wine.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Leaning towards her, Oliver teased, “only you can tell me that, Felicity.”  
  
“No, I meant this.” She motioned between them with her hands. “Why are you asking me... to eat with you?”  
  
“In all fairness, I didn't ask.”  
  
“In all seriousness, if you don't want me to stab you with a pair of scissors, you'll call it asking, and I'll pretend to believe you.”  
  
Full on laughing, Oliver said, “someone made it seem like I owed you a meal.”  
  
She winced. “You heard all that? More importantly, you remembered it and are now using it against me?” Before he could respond, she assured him, “Oliver, I was just nervous. And babbling. Because I babble when I'm nervous. Did I mention that already? Anyway,” shaking her head in what he could only assume was an attempt to focus, she continued, “you really don't have to feed me.”  
  
While it was downright fun to tease her – he enjoyed it more than anything else that had happened to him since he had returned, Oliver knew that, if he continued to do so, she'd simply continue to go back and forth with him, and he really needed her to agree to the date. His plan depended upon it. “Felicity, I want to feed you.” Correcting himself before she could interject, he pressed, “I want you to go out to dinner with me this evening.”  
  
“As your friend?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Is this some kind of dare? Or a charity case – did Walter put you up to this? Oh man, please don't tell me this is a pity invite.”  
  
“None of the above.”  
  
“Well, then, I'm confused.” And she looked dumbfounded.  
  
Chuckling, he asked, “can't a guy just enjoy your company and want to spend more time with you?”  
  
“Sure. A guy could,” Felicity allowed. “But not you. Not that I don't see you as a guy,” she immediately started to backpedal – her gaze dropping from his face to travel down his body, a blush staining her already rosy cheeks a deep shade of scarlet. “I mean, you're quite obviously a guy. A real man's man. A guy's guy. A... um, what are we talking about again?”  
  
“You're agreeing to go out on a date with me,” Oliver supplied.  
  
“Right... I mean, no I'm not.” She glared at him. “Ha! Nice try. But I'm not that easy.”  
  
Grinning, he taunted, “but I already thought that we had established that you were, especially when red wine was involved.”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
Now, it was his turn to be confused. “What?”  
  
“That's exactly why I can't go out with you... as your date,” Felicity explained. “Because you're you, and I'm me.”  
  
“Always preferable.”  
  
She ignored him. “And the two of us shall not meet.”  
  
“But we already did – underneath your desk.”  
  
Felicity surprised him when she stood abruptly and paced away from him. “You really need to stop doing that.”  
  
“Doing what?”  
  
“Flirting with me,” she exclaimed. “It's distracting. And misleading.”  
  
“I'm not trying to mislead you, Felicity.”  
  
Spinning around on the heels of her feet to face him, she inquired, “so you're sincerely asking me out? You're honestly attracted to me?”  
  
He honestly was. It caught no one off guard more than it did Oliver himself. After all, she wasn't his type – not at all, but, oddly enough, that might have been what he found most attractive about her. She was a very welcome and refreshing change. “I am.”  
  
“Ha! Liar!”  
  
“Felicity,” he started, only to be cut off.  
  
“Look, Oliver. It's sweet. Or... at least, I'm hoping it's sweet and not insulting or, worse, hurtful that you're doing this – that you're trying this hard. But it's not necessary. You're welcome for helping you. It's been... surreal spending time with you these past two days. And I'm willing to be your friend. That I can believe you want from me... you know, the kind of friendship where you're nice to me. We don't see each other much, and we don't really hang out, but, whenever you get a new phone or your computer has a virus, you come to me for help. That I can do. But this...”  
  
“So, dinner it is,” it was his turn to interrupt her. Standing up and taking several steps towards her, Oliver only stopped once the tips of his scuffed boots brushed against her black dress shoes. “Will 7:00 work? I'll pick you up. I got your address from the staff directory.”  
  
Felicity sighed, the fight visibly going out of her. “Fine. Dinner. As friends. 7:00. We're going dutch, and, if I so much as see a flower within three feet of your hands, your car, or our table once we reach the restaurant – or if there are any flower deliveries before or after our meal as friends, then I will personally cram every last petal up your many orifices.... your many _facial_ orifices.”  
  
“Good. Dinner. As my date. 7:00. I'm paying. And I can work with you not liking flowers. I'm not exactly the flower-giving type anyway.”  
  
Before she could argue, before she could flat-out refuse him, before she could say anything else at all, Oliver slipped out the door and disappeared.

 


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to see some [Pretty, Pretty Corresponding Pictures](https://www.pinterest.com/oycharlynnrose/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words-fic-visuals/)? (Be forewarned that I work in advance, so there could be visual spoilers if you elect to take a peek.)
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> ~Charlynn~

**Part Three**

As soon as the word 'date' left Oliver Queen's mouth, Felicity had known the idea to be a bad one. Yet, despite her overall, general awareness of life, lust, love, and luck... or, more accurately, her absolute lack thereof, somehow she found herself backed into a corner by Oliver and enjoying every single second of it, eventually caving and agreeing to go to dinner with him. While Felicity had maintained that their shared meal would not constitute a date, Oliver had been adamant that it would. True to his word, there had, thus far, been no sign of any flowers, but that didn't lessen her nerves or the shroud of awkwardness that seemed to hang around and cling to them.  
  
They had barely said two words to each other since Oliver had picked her up... something Felicity now wished she had fought against as well. Riding together to the restaurant meant that she'd either have to rely upon him to take her home later or make the end of their evening even more uncomfortable than the beginning by requesting a cab instead. And uncomfortable was an understatement. Gone was the brash playboy who had flirted with her that afternoon and, in his place, was a man who almost seemed... unsure of himself.   
  
This change that had come over Oliver threw Felicity. While she trusted it more – this quiet, reserved, almost apprehensive behavior seemed far more sincere than his attitude when practically demanding that she go out with him, it also went against everything Felicity had read about Oliver Queen. Plus, it reminded her of what had gotten them into this situation in the first place: his little flashback episode in her office the day prior, and that knocked Felicity off her game. Well, to be completely fair, it wasn't like she had much game to start with, but usually she'd at least attempt to break the ice with a good, long, embarrassing babble... which generally only made things worse, but she couldn't even manage a ramble.  
  
Thankfully, they had arrived at their destination a few minutes earlier... which meant that she was just that much closer to the night being over. Without small talk or even simple pleasantries, Oliver urged her inside. He didn't so much as touch her, but, without looking over her shoulder, Felicity could feel his hand hovering over the small of her back... like he knew that even the hint of touch would be enough to spook her into movement. And it did. Because, despite not trusting Oliver, his motivations for _asking_ her out, or his sudden interest in her – yeah, like the timing of _that_ wasn't suspicious _at all_ , she was attracted to him, so she needed to maintain a distance – physically and emotionally – if she was going to make it out of their dinner without suffering any personal consequence.   
  
The restaurant was small, dimly yet, and, frankly, not that impressive. It was dominated on one entire side by a long bar – not one where drinks were served but where diners there on their own could sit and eat in relative anonymity yet still feel a part of something bigger. The rest of the eatery was filled with two-person booths with high backs that would have afforded some privacy if not for the place's sheer lack of size and the loitering scent of heart-attack inducing MSG. Not that Felicity was complaining, necessarily. After all, as she had reiterated many a time to Oliver earlier and to herself since, their dinner _was not_ a date, and she liked the salty goodness that was Chinese food just as much as the next girl raised on take-out, but the neon-pink sign outside – and Felicity even liked pink – was just a little too much.   
  
She was still weighing the idea of voicing her... curiosity towards Oliver Queen's choice in restaurants when he ushered her into a booth, taking the side across from her and distracting Felicity completely off the scent of a potential conversation with an almost entirely genuine smile. It was so ridiculously beautiful that it caught her off-guard and stole away every single thought in her head... which was nothing to shake a stick at, because, usually, Felicity had _a lot_ of thoughts. Too many, in fact. But the smile had nothing on the words that next left Oliver's still pleasantly arranged mouth. “I should have told you earlier, but you look really nice tonight.”  
  
Normally, such a compliment would ring hollow to her ears. If it had been anyone else – hell, if it had been Oliver from several hours earlier, Felicity would have glared the man seated across from her into offering a retraction, but, just as his grin had contained a surprising degree of sincerity, so, too, did his flattery. Generally speaking, Felicity hated the word 'nice.' In her book, it was a copout adjective – the thing someone said when they really didn't like something but didn't want to hurt a person's feelings. However, Oliver somehow made it sound sweet. And, customarily, his addition of 'tonight' onto the end of the admiration would have made her question, if she looked alright that evening, what did he usually think of her appearance, but, for reasons she couldn't quite fathom, Oliver didn't make her feel insecure... at least, not in that way.   
  
Just as the silence between them was about to stretch into dangerous territory, Felicity blurted out the first thing she could think of. “I'm wearing pants.”  
  
 _Yes, because, somehow, that obvious statement was such a better choice than the requisite 'thank you.'_  
  
Had she mentioned yet that their evening was going awkwardly?  
  
Thankfully... or maybe it was actually a shame, because an opposite reaction might have brought their night to a mercifully quick end, but, whatever the proper feelings towards Oliver's response, he wasn't offended by her lack of manners. Or social grace. Or ability to have a natural if not boring conversation. “I've noticed.”  
  
“I _never_ wear pants.” And, okay, so maybe never was a gross over-estimation, but it got the point across. There were days when, because she was a girl, Felicity just did not have the patience for anything but pants. And, when she was lounging around her apartment – alone and lazy, pajama pants were her go-to wardrobe choice. But, generally speaking, she was a dress girl. Or skirts. She had an affinity for the classic skirt and blouse combination as well. Rain or shine, winter or summer, at the office or living up to her generation's reputation for being hipsters and spending her early Saturday mornings at the farmer's market, Felicity just felt... more like herself in a dress. They made her feel pretty, and feminine, and more comfortable in her own skin. However, thankfully, this little beauty of a monologue stayed inside of her mind – _for once_ – and wasn't poured all over an unsuspecting Oliver Queen. Instead, she simply expanded upon her earlier comment with a pointed, “especially on a date.”  
  
Oliver quirked his head to the side. There was a soft smirk to his absurdly blue eyes. Seriously, the man was too good looking for her own good. “So, what exactly are you saying, Felicity?”  
  
“I'm just reminding you that we are two acquaintances having dinner together... I mean, at the same place, and at the same time, but on separate checks... and it neither means more than that nor will it be repeated anytime in the future.”  
  
“Who is paying is still up for debate.”  
  
Jumping on the opportunity his rejoinder provided her with, Felicity queried, “so does that mean you're ready to accept everything else that I said?”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Oliver immediately denied. If her shoulders fell and if a teeny-tiny pout turned the corners of her lips downward, Felicity felt both reactions were justified. “I just focused upon your most egregious of errors.” The man dropped out of college... _four times_ , was a self-proclaimed Shakespearian virgin (probably the only aspect of his life Oliver could declare such innocence), and had spent the last five years of his life on an island without a library, a laptop, or a thesaurus, yet he still busted out words like 'egregious.' The more time Felicity spent with Oliver Queen, the more of an enigma he became... which was dangerous, because enigmas were first cousins with mysteries, and Felicity had never met a mystery she could walk away from without solving first. “I asked you out, Felicity. Therefore, it's my responsibility to pay.”  
  
“Oliver, this isn't 1952.”  
  
“Exactly.” She was so taken off guard by his agreement that she was caught unsuspecting when he launched his next salvo. “So, when you return the favor and ask _me_ out, I'll let you pay.”  
  
Her back bristled. Felicity told herself that the gesture was borne from righteous indignation and not from pleasure. Because she certainly wasn't using their little battle of wills to flirt with Oliver Queen. (And, yes, she realized that she kept referring to him by his first _and_ his last name – it was a good thing she hadn't gone all stalker on him and pulled up his birth certificate, because, otherwise, she'd probably be using his middle name as well, but the moment, the evening, the past two days had just been too surreal not to emphasize with a redundant use of formal monikers.) Taking a mental breath, she narrowed her gaze and started to warn him, “Nobody _lets_ me do....  
  
“What the hell do you think you're doing?!”  
  
Felicity had felt someone approaching their booth, but she had just assumed that it was their waitress. Or waiter. She didn't want to offend – further – the man standing next to their table... even if it was only in her head, though, in all likelihood, he probably wasn't there to ask them for their drink orders. Sure, Felicity knew practically better than anyone how frustrating a job in the service field could be, but the type of anger radiating off of the older man wasn't caused by a couple... as in two people _so not_ on a date... sitting in a reserved booth or talking too loudly; no, instead, this was a deep-seeded, personal fury.   
  
“Detective,” Oliver greeted.   
  
So, he knew the enraged man. That was... interesting in a disturbing way.  
  
While Oliver's tone was placid enough, Felicity saw the sudden edge of tension in his gaze, in the line of his shoulders. With eyes wide in thought and alarm, she observed Oliver's right hand twitch towards the pre-arranged silverware off to his side. This wasn't the same man she had been bantering with thirty second prior. This wasn't the exaggerated mask he had worn for her that afternoon in her office, and this wasn't the cagey yet coquettish guy who had walked into her world the day before with a shot-up laptop and a DOA lie of an excuse upon his unjustly kissable – not that she was puckering – lips. No, the man now in front of her was the same one who had heard her ringtone and reacted like they were in the middle of Bagdad. Maybe Oliver was still present with her – he wasn't trapped in some personal minefield of pain, and loss, and grief, but that same aura of danger and frightening ability had returned, and it both impressed and intimidated her how quickly he could morph between the fractured portions of his personality.  
  
“How dare you,” the cop hissed, drawing Felicity back to the confrontation unfolding before her. Or, at least, she assumed the guy was a cop. Oliver had called him 'Detective,' and he didn't exactly scream PI. He wasn't wearing a trench coat with its collar turned up, nor did he have a jaunty hat pulled low over his always suspicious, dark eyes. Now, granted, her idea of a PI was somewhat skewed by too many viewings of _The Maltese Falcon_ as a kid, but a cop still seemed like the more realistic conclusion. With voice shaking, the man attacked Oliver once more, “how dare you bring... _her_... _here_.”  
  
He said it like Felicity disgusted him, like there was something wrong with her, like she had been judged with a mere scowl and found lacking. “Hey!”  
  
But her objection went ignored. Oliver, breathing through his nose, warned, “leave her out of his.”  
  
The man chuckled contemptuously. “Me? You made her a part of this when you brought her here, when you purposefully picked someone who was blonde, and blue eyed, and alive... and rubbed them in my face, you sick bastard!”  
  
It was obvious that the detective was mourning, that he was in pain, but that did not give him the right to objectify her. He didn't even know her, yet he had reduced her down to nothing more than her hair and eye color. Oh, and also her status as still breathing, but Felicity wasn't prepared yet to face what that little remark implied about the cop's relationship with Oliver. However, when she spoke up next to defend herself, none of this came out of her mouth. That would have been the intelligent route to go, the self-respecting. Instead, she found herself admitting, “I, uh, dye it, actually.”  
  
If nothing else, though, the inappropriate comment seemed to break through the detective's armor of wrath somewhat, because he turned to her, blinking rapidly, and, for the first time since he had approached their table, it felt like he finally saw _her_. “Do you know who you're dating?”  
  
She felt compelled to defend, “this isn't a date.”  
  
“Felicity.” Oliver didn't say anything else, but the look he gave her when she caught his eye expressed that nowreally wasn't the time to have _that_ argument. Again.   
  
Solemnly, she turned back to the cop. “I'm aware of who Oliver Queen is, yes.”  
  
“So, you know that he's incapable of monogamy. That he uses people. That he's selfish, opportunistic, greedy, and egotistical. That he'll chew you up, and spit you out, and you'll never be the same again. That he'll hurt you.” The longer he spoke, the louder the detective's voice climbed, and his denouncements upon Oliver's character weren't posed as questions to Felicity but rather as statements. Warnings. While she couldn't help but feel sympathy towards the man's obvious pain, she knew the Oliver who had waltzed into her world the day before wasn't the same Oliver the cop was describing. And she was just about to calmly and rationally point this out when two fists came down upon their small table, rattling the silverware and making her jump. Felicity would have liked to have said that she was just startled, but she couldn't deny that there was a severity to the older man that scared her. “You know that he killed my daughter.”  
  
“Oh,” she breathed out in astonishment. Then realization crashed through Felicity. “ _Oh!_ You're _that_ detective.”  
  
Her acknowledgement of his identity seemed to settle the cop down somewhat. He backed off and away from her, standing up straight. With arms folded over his chest, Mr. Lance – because Felicity now knew that to be his name – asked her, “he told you about me; he told you about my Sara?”  
  
“No.” Before the grieving father could pounce on that remark, she expanded upon her answer. “He didn't have to. I'm not an idiot, Detective. I knew exactly who Oliver Queen was when I met him yesterday and when I agreed to go to dinner with him tonight.” And then, because, apparently, she was a glutton for punishment, Felicity added, “it's not like the reporters in this town allow for anything he does to remain a secret, and my motto is: have tablet, will read, so I'm well versed in all of Oliver's shenanigans... and probably a few he didn't actually commit.”  
  
“Shenanigans,” Mr. Lance repeated dangerously. He was mocking her. Suddenly... and she wasn't exactly sure why her body chose that particular moment to, once more, become aware of its surroundings, Felicity could feel every single pair of eyes inside of the restaurant slicing into her exposed skin... which there wasn't much of, so the curious and judgmental stares just seemed to sting that much more where they did find her vulnerable. Her face flamed, and her gaze dropped away from the again seething detective as he railed against her, “you consider murder to be a shenanigan?”  
  
“I didn't kill Sara.” The whispered yet uncompromising statement was the first time Oliver had said anything in several minutes, and it was enough to lift Felicity's own gaze up to meet his. She was surprised to find that, while he spoke, Oliver was looking at her and not the man accusing him of such ugly crimes.   
  
“Don't you say her name!”  
  
Still, Oliver didn't address the cop attacking him. He confessed to her; he watched her. “I cheated on Laurel with her own sister. I was a coward. Laurel wanted a future with me, and I felt trapped. So, I ran away, and I took her baby sister with me, because Sara liked me. She made me feel better about myself. Plus, it didn't hurt that, if running away didn't curb Laurel's ideas of moving in together, sleeping with her sister certainly would. I was a bastard, I fully admit that, but, if I had... known what was going to happen, I never would have allowed Sara to go with me. I did _everything_ I could to save her, but it wasn't enough, and that's something I will have to live with for the rest of my life.”  
  
“Yet, I don't hear you apologizing,” Mr. Lance sneered.   
  
Oliver, with both hands resting upon the top of their table and clenching into white-knuckled fists, finally turned to meet the cop's dark and unwavering glare. “No apology could never bring her back to you, and I know better than to hope that you'd ever accept my regret.”  
  
“Your regret,” the older man scoffed. “That regret should be the only thing keeping you warm at night – and not some bottle-blonde chippy...” Really, a chippy? Her hair was in a bun, her shoulders were covered by her sweater, and her heels weren't _that_ high. “... while you await the needle in your six by eight cell at Iron Heights.”  
  
And _that's_ where Felicity Smoak drew the line. “That's enough, Detective.” The cop flinched... as if it pained him to even look at her. With voice murmur soft yet still backed by the steel of her convictions, she said, “I understand that you're hurting. I, too, have lost someone close to me. It wasn't my child, but... it was still painful. But blaming Oliver? Attacking us in a public place like this? It's not doing anyone, especially you, any good. And I'm sorry, but you can't just go around and accuse people of murder. You can't tell someone that they deserve to die. I'm not ignorant to what Oliver did to your family, but he didn't act alone. Your daughter went with him on that yacht willingly. He didn't force her. While that might make Oliver slimy, it doesn't make him a criminal.”  
  
But Mr. Lance wouldn't back down. “Oh, Little Girl, you have no idea who you're dealing with.” She wanted to ask him who he was referring to: Oliver or himself, but Felicity held her tongue. And then her question was answered for her without prompting. “I've only just hinted at his crimes. My Sara was just the first. But she was from five years ago. You should hear what he's done since he's been back in town. Trust me, it'll make you turn a little _green_ around the gills.”  
  
Ignoring the not so subtle implication, Felicity calmly answered back with, “you should leave.”  
  
“But it's _my_ restaurant,” the cop roared. He threw his arms up in emphasis of the small eatery. Then he jabbed a finger in Oliver's direction. “Queen only knows about this place, because he came here with _my_ daughters, with _my_ family. And now he brings some....”  
  
Swiftly rising to his feet, backing Mr. Lance away from their table, and interrupting the older man, Oliver warned, “do not finish that sentence, Detective.” Before the grieving father could react, Oliver pressed forward. “Felicity's right. You need to go.” But he didn't just leave it at that. “And, in the future, you need to stay away from her, too.”  
  
“Why, afraid she'll realize who you really are?”  
  
“No,” Oliver argued. “Because she had nothing to do with Sara, and she doesn't deserve you treating her, hurting her, like this.”  
  
“One of us might be hurting that girl, Queen,” the cop stated regretfully, “but it's not me.” He then moved to get right in Oliver's face. “I'll leave, but this isn't over.”  
  
Acknowledging the threat, Oliver just nodded once in recognition, waiting until Lance violently pushed his way out of the little Chinese joint before exhaling harshly and sliding back into his side of the booth.   
  
Oliver opened his mouth to say something – to apologize, to explain, to change the topic, Felicity had no idea, because she didn't give him the chance. Instead, she pounced upon the mere seconds of quiet, randomly selecting the first, semi-coherent thought she had that didn't involve a laptop littered with bullet holes, illegally obtained blueprints – not that she could really judge on that front, poison laced bullets, or assassins – all topics which directly supported Mr. Lance's less than _hooded_ accusations. “Before all of that,” and to emphasize her words, Felicity waved her right hand in a circular motion towards where one of Starling's finest in blue had just stood. “I was going to ask how you came to select this restaurant, but now I really don't think I want to know.”  
  
Oliver sighed. She watched as he instinctively reached out a hand to comfort her but then pulled it away and dropped it back into his lap at the last moment. He then grimaced. “It's not like that.”  
  
“You mean, you didn't bring me – someone who, evidently, looks like your ex, dead... what, mistress?... at least, from a distance – to rub said mistress' death in her grieving father's face?” He opened his mouth to respond, but Felicity reassured him first. “Don't worry, Oliver. I don't think that's what happened here.” Mumbling under her breath, she added, “but it does suddenly make thinking you brought me here because you were ashamed and didn't want to be seen in public with me a much more appealing idea.”  
  
She went to stand up – prepared to leave even if Oliver asking her out wasn't in an attempt to use her, but, when he started to talk, the undeniable truth and vulnerability she heard from him made her pause and sit back down. “I... like it here.” Oliver shrugged self-deprecatingly. “Maybe a part of me associates this place with feeling safe, because it's somewhere I used to go... before. But, when I brought you here, I wasn't thinking about dinners with the Lance family. I was thinking that we could actually be alone here. Talk.” There was something else to his reasoning lurking underneath his explanation, but what he did tell her was heartfelt enough that Felicity was satisfied. So, she stayed. “But if you'd rather go somewhere else, somewhere like Table Salt...?”  
  
“Oh, god no,” she interrupted his offer. Felicity noticed that Oliver seemed slightly taken aback by her fervent response, so she rushed to clarify, “I just... I hate pretentious restaurants – what, with their tiny portions, and their judgy maitre-d's, and their eavesdropping diners because no one in those places ever has anything interesting to say to one another. Plus, Table Salt? What kind of name is that? It makes me think of burger joints that are a little lax in their cleanliness – like some guy with a cholesterol level as high as your credit score just finished eating there after dumping _even more_ salt upon his fries and getting it all over the formica.” Seemingly on a roll, Felicity just kept going, taking a deep breath before delving into her grand finale. “Then, Table Salt would undoubtedly have some insanely expensive floral arrangement in the middle of their tables, and the last thing you need tonight is be assaulted by petals – remember my warning – after being publicly prosecuted by the father of your ex-girlfriend _and_ your ex, dead mistress. Not that either of us need reminded of that fact. However, we... and by we I mean me... _do_ need reminded as to why we're here: to eat, and I, for one, love to eat Chinese food. So, we should stay.” Their waitress – and, yes, she was a waitress, approached, so Felicity turned to her and reiterated her decision. “We're staying.”  
  
A couple of minutes and drinks and dinners ordered later, Oliver waited until their server left before changing the topic. “Now, I really must insist upon paying, especially after that... rocky start to our evening.”  
  
 _Yeah_ , Felicity mentally snorted to herself. _More like Himalayan_. Instead of saying that out loud, though, she settled with, “I'm too hungry to continue arguing with you about this. You win; I concede.” After a beat, she added, “but this still isn't a date.”  
  
“Why not?” Felicity hadn't been expecting that question. “If this was a new objection caused by Detective Lance's accusations, then I'd understand. But you've been fighting me on this from the very beginning.”  
  
Felicity rolled her eyes. “You make it sound like you've been pursuing me for weeks, Oliver. You asked me out _this afternoon_.”  
  
“And you immediately shot me down,” he countered her point with one of his own. “You refused to even entertain the idea of dating me, yet you never said that you weren't interested in or attracted to me.” Forget the man being too handsome for her own good; his confidence was going to be the death of her conviction to keep him at arm's length. “Why do you automatically dismiss the idea of us dating?”  
  
Because it wasn't his pierced playboy pride inquiring but rather candid consternation, Felicity laid her cards out on the table. “Putting aside the timing or your... _invitation_ , I'm not the type of woman Oliver Queen dates.” When he went to object, Felicity held up a hand, requesting his patience and silence. “I'm not fishing for a compliment, Oliver. I'm confident enough in my appearance and accomplishments to know that I am a beautiful, successful woman. Despite what I implied earlier in my office, I don't find it surprising that you could be attracted to me. And we have chemistry together. I admit that, too. But the problem with that is... just who exactly do I have chemistry with?   
  
“Even when you're being truthful with me, there's an emotional dishonesty that haunts your words and actions. The only time you have completely let your walls down around me, you didn't even know where we were, that I was even there. In your mind, you might have been protecting me against those gunshots, but you weren't seeing me in your arms.” Pausing, Felicity offered Oliver a delicate smile to gentle the harsh facts she was leveling against him. “And mutual attraction? It isn't enough either, because I'm not the type of girl who casually dates or engages in one night stands. I work. A lot. And that's not a complaint, just a fact. But it also means that, when I do agree to spend my precious free time with someone, I want it to matter. And the Oliver who lies to me, who flirts with me in an attempt to distract, who knowingly uses my attraction for him against me, who refuses to admit that he's hurting right now and needs help, who doesn't seem to know who he is... let alone allowing someone else to really get to know him – that Oliver? He's not ready for something that's real, for something with meaning.”  
  
“You're right.” And then Felicity had to wait for their waitress to hand out their drinks and leave them alone once more before she could hear the rest of Oliver's response. And she wanted to hear what Oliver had to say, because the man before her had been stripped and laid bare by her accurate if not somewhat harsh appraisal. She had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from yelling at the poor server to just hurry up already. “Being... away, that island... changed me. For five years, I thought of nothing but coming home. To my family, to my friends.” _To_ _Laurel_. The other woman's name might have gone unsaid, but Felicity heard the two syllables nonetheless, and Laurel seemed to occupy the space, the distance, between them without even trying.  
  
“I guess it was foolish – to think that I could come back and... what? – that everything would just return to the way it was _before I died_? Before Sara died?” Oliver lifted two weary hands, scrubbing them harshly against his face before allowing them to fall to the table where he anxiously toyed with the broken paper ring which had once held his napkin rolled together. He picked at it, tore it into little, tiny pieces. “But everything's different. Everyone. Nothing's the way I remember it. Or maybe I'm the one who's different,” Oliver allowed, chuckling without humor. “Maybe I've changed too much to fit into my own life – to be my mother's son, Thea's big brother, or Tommy's best friend. They're the people who mean the most to me, yet, when I'm with them, I feel like I'm pretending. With you, though....”  
  
Oliver paused long enough to drop the scraps of paper and unflinchingly meet her eyes. “With you, Felicity? Yesterday, for the first time since I've been home, I felt something _real_. I wasn't expecting you. When Walter sent me to your office, I'm not sure what I thought I'd find, but you surprised me. You made me laugh, and I don't think you realize how much I needed that.” Perhaps she hadn't realized it then, but she was starting to realize it now. “But you're not just funny, Felicity; you're... different, too. Everything's changed, and no one fits, but you do, because you're the only person who looks at me without expectations – like you're still trying to figure out who I am. And I need that about you, too, because I'm trying to figure out the same thing. So, yes, maybe I'm not ready for you, Felicity Smoak, but what's happening between us is real. It means something, too.”  
  
And Felicity believed him. Oh, she still felt like he was keeping something from her – lots of somethings, really, and there was something else motivating his pursuit of her besides what he had just confessed, but it was enough. The acknowledgement, the truth – even if it was just partial, and his vulnerability? They were enough... for now, and Felicity met the glimpse Oliver had afforded her into his heart by lowering her own walls enough to admit, “fine.” But she still rolled her neck down towards her left shoulder and regarded him with a raised brow. “I guess you can consider this a date.” The wide smile that spread across his face caused Felicity's breath to catch. “But I'm not going to sleep with you.”  
  
“Tonight,” Oliver conditioned.  
  
“Ever,” Felicity corrected him. She then screwed up her face in confusion, because _where did that come from_? Such a promise was not one her self-control could live up to... nor did she want it to.  
  
But Oliver just laughed. “So, I'm guessing right now would not be the time to tell you that there's a bottle of red wine in my car that I brought with me for later?”  
  
Their food arrived. Felicity dropped her head into her hands and groaned. And Oliver just simply started to eat. With cheeks flushed in mortification, Felicity looked back up at him from underneath her lashes. “I wore pants, Oliver.” On a now just-admitted-to date – something she had _never_ done before, because Felicity didn't feel sexy in pants, and she wore them when that was the damn point. _“Pants!”_  
  
He smirked. And then Oliver dropped his gaze down to where, if the table wasn't between them and she wasn't sitting down, he'd be ogling her ass. “Yeah. And, like I said before, Felicity, _I noticed._ ”  
  
Forget her pants. With that one look, Felicity felt naked.

 

…

 

As Oliver walked Felicity to her door, his plan was to end their evening there. Despite his teasing from earlier in the night... and the very real bottle of wine he held in his right hand, he needed to be alone. He needed time and space away from not only Felicity but also the rest of the world as he trained in the old Foundry’s basement, pushing his body physically to clear his mind and sweat off their date. Because he was wound tight, his nerves stretched thin. And it had nothing to do with Lance cornering them at the restaurant – after all, that had been a part of Oliver's plan – and everything to do with his reaction towards the woman he was only pretending with.  
  
At least, that's all it was supposed to be with Felicity. She was just meant to be a small cog in an otherwise very big wheel. He'd date her – wine her and dine her, convince her that he was nothing more than his reputation: a playboy. The little episode in her office wasn't a flashback – some left over trauma from the hell that had been his life for the past five years – but, instead, was just a creative way for Oliver to get Felicity exactly where he wanted her: on her back. Perhaps he'd even go so far as to sleep with her. It's not like it'd be a hardship. He was, after all, just a man, and Felicity was a very attractive woman. There hadn't been anyone since.... Well, it had been a while, so it'd be a relief to let off a little stress in bed. But that's all it could be between them: sex.   
Oliver didn't want, couldn't want, anything else, especially not with Felicity. There was his mission, and there was Laurel, and he had no room in his life for some sweet, naïve IT expert. He'd use her, abuse her – not physically but emotionally, and, in the end, he'd get not only Walter off his back but Detective Lance as well. Felicity was a means to an end, nothing more. But then their evening had turned into something far more than just a mere alibi, and Oliver had found himself opening up and allowing himself to be vulnerable for the first time in far too long.   
  
While Oliver regretted what Lance had said to Felicity, he wouldn't take it back. As ugly and as brutal as their confrontation had become, it had been very public. There was no way Lance would be able to deny when or where it had gone down. Plus, Felicity needed to hear those things about him, about who he once was. If he would have been thinking at all, Oliver would have let her walk away from him when she tried to slip away after Lance left. But the pain in her eyes, the devastation, the insult? It had been too much. He could kill a man with his bare hands, but Oliver had learned that evening that he couldn't purposefully hurt Felicity Smoak.   
  
And why not?  
  
Because everything he had admitted to her – everything her compassionate rejection had made him say – was true. She did make him laugh. She did put him at ease. She was the only person who looked at him without expectations or disappointments. She was real; he was real... or as real as he could be with anybody... when he was with her. She _meant_ something much more than a mere mark he could toss aside once her usefulness had been exploited. She made him _feel_. And that's exactly why Oliver wasn't going to push their night any further, why he needed to leave, why he needed to get as far away from Felicity as soon as he possibly could.   
  
That's why she was dangerous.  
  
“I actually had a good time tonight. Well, after... everything,” Felicity amended her announcement. Without responding, Oliver watched as she dug her house key out of her purse. It was a clutch – small with limited storage space, yet it took her several moments to locate the item. “Believe it or not, I've had worse first dates.”  
  
Which implied a second date was forthcoming if he were so inclined to ask. And he was... which meant that it was a very bad idea. “You'll have to tell me about them sometime,” he suggested blandly. It was an appropriate response but didn't box him into any commitments for the future.   
  
However, Felicity didn't seem to grasp that he was trying to make a graceful retreat. “Why not now?” She turned around to unlock her front door, pushing it open as she walked inside and leaving it that way as she waited for him to follow. He did... but simply because he didn't see how he could not. “You have the wine – very good wine, too, it looks like, judging from the label, and I have an amazingly high threshold for embarrassment. Especially when I'm tipsy. So, since we're not going to have sex, we might as well talk some more.” With her back towards him, Felicity made her way through her living room, seemingly unaware of what her words did to him. Oliver had just finished telling himself that he shouldn't even spend time with Felicity, but now all he could think about was sleeping with her. And he wanted to – sleep with her, that is – very much so. More importantly, he found that he wanted her to want to sleep with him. But, instead, she wanted them to keep talking? He had already shared more with her that evening than he had possibly ever shared with a woman before. And he hadn't even so much as kissed her.  
  
Tossed aside went her purse. Shrugging off her sweater and draping it along the back of her couch, Felicity continued to make herself comfortable. She then toed off her pink heels and kicked them underneath her entertainment stand while she, more so out of habit than anything else, turned on her TV. “The night's still young, so we should carpe it....”  
  
 _“ … struck again. This time, the vigilante targeted prominent Starling City businessman....”_  
  
“ … like The Hood,” she finished. Oliver came up to stand beside her, the two of them directly facing the television which softly detailed what only he knew to be Diggle's exploits from that evening. “You know,” Felicity spoke up from off to his left. “I actually kind of thought you were The Hood.”  
  
It was Oliver who nearly choked on her admission. “What?!”  
  
Felicity didn't answer him right away. Instead, she pried the bottle of red from between his suddenly lax fingers and made her way into her kitchen. He could hear her moving about – opening cupboards and drawers, pulling down wine glasses and rooting around for her corkscrew. Then, as quick as she was pouring, words started to flow off her tongue and through her lips. Still, Oliver never turned to look at her. The way he was staring at her TV, Felicity probably thought that he was fascinated by the news story. But, really, he just... couldn't look at her.   
  
Despite what he had said to Diggle, Oliver really hadn't believed Felicity – or Walter – aware of his secret. His sole reason for using her in his plan for Lance was just to disabuse her of her knowledge of his... flashback in her office. Felicity would then recant her opinion of his behavior to Walter, and he'd be able to walk around his own home again without feeling like his step-father was waiting with baited breath for Oliver to suffer from some... PTSD episode. But Oliver had absolutely no desire to admit the extent of the incident which had taken place at QC with Felicity to Diggle, so he had used it to his advantage to get his new partner on board with his plan. But now... to learn that his threat of her knowledge hadn't been empty...?  
  
“Even before Detective Lance all but frisked you for a bow and some arrows this evening, I had my suspicions,” Felicity shared. Her tone was light, though. Pleasant. If she still believed him to be the vigilante, she was either in denial about what that meant or accepting of its implications. Neither option seemed to jive with what Oliver knew of her so far, however. “I mean, you made it kind of hard _not_ to suspect you – what, between assassins, and bullets, and poison. Oh my. And, for the record,” Felicity added as she made her way back into the living room, two wine glasses – one much fuller than the other – clutched carefully in her hands. She took a seat upon the couch and then kept talking. “I'm not a huge fan of _The Wizard of Oz._ I just... water, really? Are you telling me that the Wicked Witch _never_ showered or bathed, because, if so, her smell would have been much worse than her spells. While the device was much more forgivable in 1939 – I'm looking at you, Mr. M. Night Shyamalan, I still find it to be lazy storytelling.”  
  
Oliver collapsed down beside her, taking the proffered Cabernet Franc. “So... you don't think I'm The Hood now?”  
  
His question made her pause on her way to taking a hearty sip. Eyeing Oliver like he was the crazy one – and maybe he was, because he was still there, tempting fate, and asking for answers that would pose a threat to both of them, Felicity responded, “well, unless you have the ability to be two places at once, I think the newly expired embezzler says otherwise.”  
  
And then Oliver found himself suggesting something that was just plain foolish. He said it as a joke, but his secret identity was no laughing matter. And neither was Felicity's safety. Yet, despite this, he found that there was a part of him – one that he would quickly and efficiently squash – that wanted her to know the truth, the whole truth, about him. He wanted her approval, and her support, and her understanding. He wanted Felicity to agree to go out with him a second time not despite of his mission but in part because she, too, believed in the crusade. Oliver truly was his own worst enemy. “Maybe it's a team effort.”  
  
Felicity snorted in dismissal of the idea. “Please. From what I can see, neither you _nor The Hood_ play well with others.” Then, as if to punctuate her words, Felicity swirled her wine around in the bowl of her glass before lifting it to her mouth.   
  
As soon as liquor touched her palate, Felicity froze – her former animation all but disappearing as she savored the various flavors of her drink. Oliver watched in fascination as her lids first flickered and then slid completely shut, as the muscles of her neck contracted, as her entire body seemed to visibly relax. As she swallowed, Felicity let out a small mew and then a soft moan of pleasure, the noises seemingly coming from the back of her throat. So, her lips were pursed and her eyes were closed when he leaned forward and kissed her. Just for a moment, he wanted to feel that kind of bliss, taste that kind of indulgence. Taste her.   
  
When his mouth touched her, Felicity gasped, but Oliver didn't take advantage of her reaction to deepen the kiss. Instead, he kept their embrace light. He stole her wine glass from her fingers – safety sitting it down on the floor, all the while ever brushing their lips together. As Felicity's now empty hands fell palms up and open upon her lap, he whispered the pads of his own fingers against the apples of her cheeks, following the line of her neck down to her collar bones, and then over to her pale, soft as silk shoulders. It was several minutes later when he finally forced himself to pull away.  
  
“Mmmm,” Felicity praised appreciatively. Her eyes were still loosely shut behind the lenses of her glasses, and there was a very satisfied smile lifting the corners of her plump, berry hued mouth. “I'm still not sleeping with you.”  
  
Laughing, all Oliver could do was retrieve Felicity's glass and, once more, place it in her hands. “Here,” he said as she took the flute from him. “Have some more red wine.”  
  
Lids flashed open and lips spread wide in a smile, Felicity returned his amusement, and Oliver was... happy. 

 


	4. Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are more [Pretty, Pretty Corresponding Pictures](https://www.pinterest.com/oycharlynnrose/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words-fic-visuals/) for this chapter. (Be forewarned that I work in advance, so there could be visual spoilers if you elect to take a peek.)
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> ~Charlynn~

**Part Four**

Moira Queen had been shot (at), Felicity couldn't get ahold of her boss (Walter... er, Mr. Steele – _not_ that idiot supposedly in charge of the IT department), Oliver was on a date with another woman (slore), and Felicity... felt like a fool.  
  
So, she was cleaning.  
  
Maniacally.   
  
Like... scrub down her walls, dust off every single slat on her blinds, take a toothbrush to the inside of her oven... cleaning.   
  
The pads of her fingers now had more wrinkles than that old lady from _There's Something About Mary_ , and her apartment smelled like a gas station pine tree air freshener, but Felicity kept working, because... it helped. It helped her focus, and it helped her to channel her hurt feelings and self-disappointment into something more positive, something productive, something that felt closer to rage than pain. And rage was good. It was... bracing.  
  
She was an idiot – an otherwise smart woman who had been fooled by pretty smiles and even prettier words, but it wasn't just Oliver's fault. No, she was to blame, too, because Felicity had been vain enough to believe that there was something special about her, something that made Oliver want to confide in her – a stranger – rather than in his loved ones. Once more, her own insecurities reared their ugly, stupid heads, and Oliver must have recognized them, because he had certainly taken advantage of her weakness for wanting to feel needed and important. That first day in her office, he found his opening, and a day later he came back and took it. And, in the process, he took her for a fool, too.  
  
But no more.   
  
As Felicity made her way through her refrigerator, tossing out old food and organizing the few items that she deemed safe and healthy enough to keep – because, apparently, when she cleaned her house, she also decided to clean up her diet as well, she continued to berate herself. Oh, she hadn't been completely wrong about Oliver Queen. He was damaged. He was haunted, and running from his past, and he was most definitely suffering from PTSD. Felicity was sick and tired of not speaking the plain truth in favor of tip-toeing around his delicate ego. However, what Oliver Queen wasn't was misunderstood.   
  
Maybe he wasn't the stone-cold killer who went after impressionable, naïve girls like the grieving Detective Lance made him out to be, but he wasn't a former, reformed playboy who was trying to get to know himself again while they got to know each other either. He wasn't even The Hood – a misguided vigilante who did horrible things for all the right reasons... like she had once believed. No – and, here, Felicity snorted to herself in disgust and disappointment, pitching half-finished jars of condiments into her garbage can with both hands – Oliver Queen was nothing more than a wannabe gangster.   
  
She should have known. Her realization made too much sense to have not come to her sooner. Or maybe she had just been in denial, wanting to see the good in Oliver – good that, quite frankly, she was starting to think didn't exist. Just like the man she had convinced herself Oliver wasn't – smooth, slick, shallow, so, too, were mobsters... or, at least, that's what Felicity believed to be true after watching six seasons of _The Sopranos_ and far too many movies about The Rat Pack for someone born and raised in Vegas. But, anyway, her point was that the transition from entitled playboy to a gangster who didn't think the rules applied to him wasn't a difficult one, and the explanation made all of Oliver's other inconsistencies suddenly fit.   
  
Frank Bertinelli wanted to get into bed with Queen Consolidated. It didn't take a shoot-out in front of the office to tell Starling City that. The construction company had not been shy in pursuing the bid for QC's new Applied Sciences building, and Bertinelli was not subtle about masking his business' organized crime backing. Bertinelli Construction was as successful as it was, because its goods were illegally obtained through racketeering and because it strong-armed potential clients. A slightly higher bid looked much more appealing when the alternative was broken kneecaps. Or worse.   
  
Say... curare laced assassin bullets worse.  
  
Satisfied with her refrigerator, Felicity stood up straight – the stiff joints of her knees and back cracking as she subtly stretched with the movement. Reaching for the handle of her freezer, she started the clean-out process all over again. And the cold air from the freezer was good, too. Whether she felt overheated because of her exertion or because of the potency of her feelings, it was a relief to cool down somewhat... just as it was a relief to finally figure out why Oliver Queen had been in possession of a stolen, shot-up laptop the day they met.   
  
Everything had been a set-up. What better way to convince Walter and Moira into doing business with the mob than to make them feel like their lives were in danger from a common enemy? It had been well publicized that things were less than copacetic between Frank Bertinelli's organization and The Triad. Bertinelli's goons, over the past few weeks, had been dropping like it was hot (dropping as in dead, not as in a dance move; and hot as in the heat from the competition and not because they were especially attractive lackeys). So, too, had Queen Consolidated's competitors for Unidac Industries. Felicity now had no doubt that, if Oliver wouldn't have been spooked by her ring tone, he would have eventually led her to believe that Floyd Lawton was hired by The Triad – information she would have taken to Walter, information that would have pushed him right into Frank Bertinelli's waiting and willing arms.   
  
After all, like father, like step-son, right? Because Oliver sure looked cozy inside of Russo's with Helena Bertinelli.   
  
Russo's was an Italian restaurant. Fitting, right, considering Oliver was apparently dating the don of Starling City's daughter? It was also a family owned establishment – small, private, intimate. There were actual chairs instead of just booths and barstools. And Italian made sense for a date with Oliver Queen – so much more so than Chinese, or burgers, or pizza. Because that's where all their so-called dates had taken place: at greasy spoons and hole in the wall joints located in The Glades. Just like with their first _date_ together, Oliver told Felicity it was because he wanted them to have their privacy, but, really, now she knew it was easier to pull one over on her when he wasn't at risk of getting caught out with someone who wasn't his moll.   
  
She slammed her freezer and moved on to polishing her silver. Okay, so she didn't actually _own_ any silver, but Felicity still took a rag to all of her discount silverware – the obsessive-compulsive behavior soothing her... well, as much as she was willing to be soothed, which meant that it forced her hands to stop shaking in barely restrained fury. As she buffed, she berated – Oliver, his gangster girlfriend, even Walter for recommending Felicity to his Luddite of a step-son. Most of all, though, she berated herself, because, despite her anger, she couldn't ignore the truth.  
  
He genuinely found her funny – had since the day they met... and not in that mean way that she was so used to where people made fun of her babbling and lack of brain to mouth filter but in that he would laugh _with_ her. His fear was real, too. Although Oliver had not shown that side of himself to her willingly, and he had yet to openly discuss what he was afraid of and how he was still traumatized by it even now after leaving it thousands of miles behind, he had also never outright dismissed her observations either. He also didn't dismiss her skills or her intelligence. Oliver was honestly intrigued by her accomplishments... just like he had been honest with her that night of their first date.   
  
Their first non-date.   
  
Their first... well, whatever it was they had been doing together these last few weeks. Because that's where Oliver's lies came into play. While his reaction towards her, his attraction, and the time they spent together all seemed real, Oliver was still lying to her about who he was – hell, maybe he was even lying to himself about that one as well, and he had yet to tell her the truth as to why he felt the need to lie in the first place. And those lies, despite all the other truths, were the worst lies anyone could ever inflict upon someone they were supposed to care about.   
  
And, yep, there it was. The pain. It had returned. So, obviously, her detail oriented kitchen cleaning wasn't working any longer to distract her, so Felicity decided to move onto something a little more strenuous, something that would require her to put her back into it, something that would take up so much of her attention that she wouldn't be able to consider why she kept talking in outdated rap lyrics: furniture moving, followed immediately by scrubbing, polishing, and waxing her hardwood floors. Thankfully, she had sliders to assist her, because, even though scratching her floors would then make sanding them down and refinishing them necessary, Felicity didn't think her neighbors would appreciate _that_ at 9:30 at night. Plus, she might have been faux pissed off in an effort to mask her disappointment and regret, but that failed to provide her with the adrenaline spike necessary to lift a full-sized couch onto her shoulders. Though she certainly had nice shoulders, apparently, because Oliver was always....  
  
And, yeah.   
  
_So not going there._  
  
Her entertainment unit, TV, lamps, end tables, vase, and even her small loveseat had all been moved into her bedroom – precariously piled on top of her bed so she wouldn't be able to quit the floor project halfway through and go to sleep when she inevitably crashed from her emotional overload – and Felicity, hands on boxer-clad hips, was contemplating how exactly she was going to move her sofa out of her living room without one of those mom-saves-baby-trapped-under-a-car adrenaline spikes (ignoring the obvious question as to how the kid ended up underneath the car in the first place) when there was a knock on her door.  
  
Her sock clad feet whispered across her otherwise bare floor as she robotically moved to answer the door. While Felicity wasn't sure who she was expecting to find on the other side, she did know that she neither wanted it to be nor thought it would be Oliver. But, sure enough, the source of her wrinkly fingers, and her forest-scented apartment, and her now empty fridge, and her buried bed, and her couch quandary, and her boy angst was standing before her looking... well, all kinds of happy and relieved to see her, and... what?  
  
She must have voiced that blunt query out loud, because, in response, Oliver chuckled. And then he stepped inside of her home, and he stepped right inside of her personal space, and his presence just about swallowed her whole. Suddenly, he was surrounding her. His palms lifted to cup to her face – pulling it closer, holding it tight, drawing her near, while his long fingers delved into the messy nest of knots that was her hair piled precariously on top of her head. And then Oliver sighed.   
  
All of this took place in a mere span of seconds. The clock seemed to be both moving at warp speed and standing still at the same time. Just a moment before, Felicity had been so hurt, and so emotional, and so determined to _not_ think, and, now, Oliver was _there_ – with her – and not somewhere else with someone else, with _her_ , and all Felicity could _feel_ was... relief. But that was before he kissed her... which she didn't even realize was happening until she noticed that she was kissing him back. The kiss was hard and aggressive, demanding, yet there was this underlying note of tenderness which reminded Felicity far too much of the previous kisses – of which there had been far too many over the past few weeks – that they had shared... always there in the comfort, in the privacy, in the anonymity of her apartment – never in Russo's; never in a restaurant with chairs, and candlelight, and the occasional flash of a photographer's camera going off.   
  
And it was that thought that had Felicity pulling away. “Stop,” she gasped.  
  
Eyes wide and a hand lifting to brush against and cover her already bruising lips, Felicity watched as Oliver reacted to her rejection. She expected confusion, perhaps even frustration, but what she received was agreement. “You're right,” and he moved to touch her – to grip her waist and encourage her to lift her legs to wrap around his hips. “We should get comfortable.”   
  
Felicity only backed up another step. “No,” she argued. Oliver didn't seem to grasp yet that she wasn't happy to see him, that she didn't want him near her, that she wasn't about to engage in yet another of their heavy make-out sessions complete with light, under the shirt petting. “Don't.”  
  
But that one, harsh, dark word seemed to snap him out of his joy in seeing her, in being with her. “Felicity...?” Or maybe it was the fact that he finally noticed the state of her living room. “Where's all of your furniture?”  
  
Dropping her hand from her mouth and folding both of her arms across her chest, Felicity fired back with, “where's your girlfriend?” A look of guilt flashed across Oliver's face. But she wanted more than just guilt; she wanted an explanation and then an apology followed by a final, meaningful goodbye. “I saw you on TV... along with the rest of Starling City. At Russo's.” At least Oliver had the decency to realize how much _that_ had stung, because he flinched when she said the restaurant's name. “With Helena Bertinelli. She's an... _interesting_ choice. Telling. Especially after what happened to your mother.”  
  
Oliver's brow furrowed in contemplation, but, at the same time, he tried to argue, “it's not what it looks like, Felicity.”  
  
“So, you're not dating the daughter of the man who almost got your mother killed?”  
  
“It wasn't a date,” he alleged, trying to take a step closer to her, but Felicity just scrambled further away from him. “It was just dinner.”  
  
“Like how we have dinner together sometimes,” she suggested, narrowing her eyes in a challenge – daring Oliver to deny the similarities.  
  
“No, those were dates.” Oliver was adamant, his tone final. Before she could press him for more information, he actually volunteered it. “Tonight with Helena was just....” He paused, sighed. Oliver lifted his hands to wearily scrub against his face. When he looked at her again, he appeared... defeated. “Look, I went to meet with Frank Bertinelli this evening. I wanted... answers – about what happened to my mother.”  
  
“Frank Bertinelli wants the contract to build the new Applied Sciences building. Your mother isn't inclined to give it to him. Today, one of his men was harassing her about the project when he was shot to death... like so many others in the Bertinelli organization these days. Your mother was at the wrong place at the wrong time, because, though Moira Queen might be a lot of things, what she isn't is stupid enough to get in bed with the mob... something I can't say about her son.” At Oliver's shocked expression, she snapped, “what? It doesn't take a genius to put the pieces together, Oliver. Just common sense. So, if you're going to tell me that you went to this meeting with Bertinelli thinking that you could get him to back down, to end this war with his rivals, and to keep your....”  
  
“I don't think it's The Triad,” he interrupted her, shocking Felicity into silence and blowing her theory about Oliver's own mafia ties to smithereens. “The hit was too sloppy, and, when I chased after the gunman....”  
  
“When you _what_ ,” she stopped his explanation by demanding further clarification. At least, Oliver had the decency to glance away from her, but he didn't back down, and he didn't look either ashamed or intimidated by the situation he found himself embroiled in _with the freaking mob_. “Normal, former now reformed playboys who are dating nerdy IT girls _do not_ chase after gunmen, Oliver.”  
  
He ignored her. “I thought that, if I could get close to Bertinelli – lull him into a sense of comfort by making him think that Queen Consolidated _is_ actually interested in doing business with him, that he'd let some of the truth slip. Instead, he got called away on more urgent matters, his daughter was pressed into wining and dining me into making a deal, and I came running to you as soon as Helena started asking questions about the island.”   
  
Now _that_ caught her attention. Oliver wasn't much for talking. He definitely preferred allowing his actions to speak for him. Hence, all those heavy make-out sessions involving light, under the shirt petting that she had referred to before. And refused to think about now. But, when he would talk to her, it was never about his time away. About the island. After that first dinner together during which Detective Lance practically forced Oliver to confide the truth about his relationships with both Laurel and Sara Lance, never since had they even approached the topic so close to the truth that Oliver was keeping from her and avoiding for himself.  
  
Tilting her head to the side, Felicity regarded Oliver closely and encouraged him to expand upon his remarks... and he did so but with obvious reluctance. “I was willing to go along with Bertinelli's plan, to let him think that he could control me and the company through his daughter. I smiled, and I flirted, and I played that role that everyone except you expects from me. But then Helena wanted to know about the island – thought being that alone might have made me feel free, and I... I froze, because I realized that, if I was going to tell anyone what that time in my life was like, it would be you and not some angry, bitter woman with daddy issues. So, I stood up, and I left, and, now, I'm here – no closer to finding out why my mother is in bed with a concussion or to keeping her safe.”  
  
To show him that she was no longer upset about Helena – for, just like with everything else _except_ for who he really was and why he couldn't tell her that truth, Oliver wasn't lying to her, Felicity took a step towards Oliver, dropping her arms to her sides and shrugging her shoulders as she relaxed. “So, then, tell me about the island.”  
  
He matched her steps and raised the ante by stalking across the distance that separated them. Oliver's hands came up to wrap around her shoulders, and a crooked smile tipped up the corners of his mouth. “I have a better idea,” he teased her suggestively, and, while Felicity had no doubt that Oliver was very much interested in distracting them both by allowing their conversation to turn physical, she wasn't fooled by his sudden, forced levity. It was an act – Oliver falling back on what was comfortable and familiar rather than confronting the very real moment he had introduced and that she needed from him.   
  
She gave him one last chance. “I didn't ask you for this, Oliver. You said you wanted to tell me.”  
  
“No, I said that, if I was going to tell someone, it would be you, but I don't really feel much like talking right now.”  
  
Rolling her shoulders forward, she shrugged off Oliver's touch. He frowned. “I like you, Oliver. Spending time with you is fun, and that's not something I've had a lot of in my life recently. But I told you that first night that we went to dinner together that I would need more than just fun – that I would want commitment, and meaning, and depth. In return, you told me that you weren't ready for those things, and I accepted that and continued to see you, because it was the truth, and, as long as I wasn't being hurt, I was willing to go at your pace. But tonight, Oliver? Seeing you out with another woman _and_ being the only person who realized that's what she was? That hurt.”   
  
When he went to interject a reassurance, she held up a hand, asking for his silence. Oliver granted her that much. Continuing, she acknowledged that the pain she had felt in response to his actions had not been inflicted intentionally. “I know now that it wasn't a date, that the dinner didn't mean anything, but that knowledge came too late, because the damage was already done.”  
  
“I don't understand.” Oliver was fairly pleading with her. “What exactly are you saying, Felicity?”  
  
“I'm saying that you were able to hurt me, Oliver, because, despite going into this... friendship... with my eyes open wide, I already care too much. It's not that I think you _don't_ care... exactly. It's that you don't care enough. And I'm sorry, Oliver, because I tried not to expect more from you than what I thought you could give me, especially not after what you told me regarding your relationships with your family and friends, but I don't think that it was too much to ask for your respect, and, if you would have respected me, this whole situation with Helena wouldn't have happened.”   
  
Up until that point, Felicity had been handling Oliver with kid gloves, but, now, the gloves came off, because there was no other way to get through to him. “Instead, you would have been honest with me right from the start about who you are.” She watched as fear made his features tense. Suddenly, Oliver's body was poised for flight. But Felicity pressed on, undaunted. “You wouldn't deny your PTSD.”  
  
With one last ditch effort, Oliver tried to distract her with a joke that was both in poor taste and delivered without any conviction. “You mean my post traumatic sex drought?”  
  
Felicity sighed and shook her head in disappointment, ignoring his statement. “You'd let me see that side of you, and you'd let me help you. You'd stop lying to me about why you're really here, because, while you might like me, Oliver, we both know there's more to it than just that. And, because you were honest with me, I'd be the one nerdy IT girl who _did_ date the former, reformed playboy who chased after gunmen because he wanted to keep his mother safe, and I would have helped you come up with a much better plan to do so than trying to fool a mob boss into taking you into his confidence. And that, unlike you _dating_ me, would not have been you using me, because I would have gone into helping you with both of my eyes wide open instead of deluding myself into thinking that, if I was just patient with you long enough, you'd eventually allow me in to see who you really are.”  
  
Gone was his former relief in seeing her. So, too, was Oliver's fear of what she was about to say, his desperation to prevent her from saying what needed to be said, and his denial, and, in their place, was a cold, empty mask of anger. At least, he gave her that much; at least, he didn't shut down on her entirely. Frankly, it was more than Felicity was expecting after she realized just what exactly she was going to confront Oliver with that evening. But, still, he didn't respond, so she took it upon herself to end things between them with a note of finality. “I think you should go.”  
  
For several long seconds, Oliver just watched her. Glowered. Stared. And then he nodded – just once, his jaw tightening to the point of pain, before pivoting around on his scuffed motorcycle boots, walking away from her, and then loudly slamming the door shut behind him as he left. As she watched him go, Felicity found herself wondering if that was enough. Her harsh words and rejection worked to push that side of Oliver away who didn't respect her enough to either tell her the truth or believe that she could protect herself, but Oliver was a complicated man. Layered. He wore many masks, many hats: brother, son, friend, lover, playboy, scion, heir, survivor, womanizer. And then there was the part of him that she saw and that she recognized but that she didn't understand yet, too. Would that Oliver stay away from her as well?  
  
Felicity wasn't sure if she even wanted him to, because, if he did, she'd never figure out who Oliver Queen really was, and, more so than the fact that she hated mysteries, she cared too much about him now to just... walk away entirely. At the same time, however, she loved herself too much to allow him to stay.

 

Suddenly exhausted, Felicity turned around with a sigh upon her lips... only for that sigh to become a curse. Well, sort of. “Son of a biscuit eating bulldog,” she huffed underneath her breath. Her living room was... well, now just a couch, which meant that her bedroom more closely resembled a storage locker. So, she had two options: one, she could just find a blanket and curl up on her sofa for the night, or, two, she could do the responsible thing and put everything that belonged in her living room back away.   
  
Option number one it was.

 

…

 

Oliver heard Diggle come in. Despite how intensely he was training, he heard him as soon as the passcode was entered and the door upstairs opened. Without showing recognition, he continued to push his body to its limits. Meanwhile, Diggle – who apparently noticed Oliver's less than receptive mood – moved about the basement in an over-exaggerated manner. On the surface, everything he did was routine, normal, but Oliver could tell that Digg was actually trying to force him into reacting. With his movements, he purposefully made more noise than normal. When he tossed his leather jacket aside, he did so with a carelessness that saw several of Oliver's tools being displaced from their rightful place. John even went so far as to put his feet up on the computer station, crossing his arms behind his head as he leaned back leisurely in the desk chair. Despite all of his, however, Oliver didn't even blink an eye, because he knew any response from him would be the inch Digg needed to take a mile.  
  
And he was in no mood to be analyzed by his driver.   
  
Even in his... agitation, Oliver could admit to himself that referring to John as just his driver was a gross underestimation of Diggle's role in his crusade and life. Despite how much the other man's need to push him – to talk, to think of the bigger picture, to be there for his family – got under Oliver's skin, Digg was quickly becoming vital to the mission. Already, Diggle had saved him more than once since joining the team. As Oliver pulled the chain which lifted the large pile of cement blocks, he silently conceded that John made him better at his mission. Hell, he even enjoyed the other man's company when he wasn't telling Oliver how misguided or just plain stupid his ideas were, but he didn't need a lecture that evening; he was already pissed off enough without John Diggle adding in his two cents. Not that Oliver thought ignoring the other man would keep him quiet for long, but he sure as hell wasn't going to invite conversation.   
  
Sure enough, it took Digg less than five minutes of waiting before he casually voiced, “so, what has your spandex in a snit this time?”  
  
If that jab was supposed to light a match to Oliver's temper and get him talking, John was going to have to try much harder than that. Letting go of the chain he was using as a pulley, Oliver listened with satisfaction as gravity did its job, and the concrete blocks fell back to the floor with a satisfying storm of sound. Dust erupted, and several blocks cracked under the pressure of collision with the factory's old concrete floor, but it wasn't like there weren't plenty more where they came from laying about the building. Without sparing Diggle even so much as a side glance – after all, Oliver didn't need to look at the other man to know that he had moved his arms down to fold them across his chest, he used the basement's infrastructure of pipes, pillars, and beams to climb his way to the ceiling, hooking his feet through some conduit and immediately beginning a set of sit-ups.   
  
In retaliation of Oliver's disregard, Diggle changed tactics. “So, I saw that your personal life just got a whole hell of a lot more complicated this evening. The playboy and the moll? I'm pretty sure that's a headline ripped straight from a soap opera... which means that'll end well.”  
  
Keeping his body as still as he could – Oliver didn't want the momentum from his movements to propel him upwards; he wanted to use his core to lift himself, he arched his body out, and then up, and then over nearly 180 degrees, twisting to the left and then to the right before re-centering himself with every rep. As he dropped back down so that he was hanging straight once more, Oliver unwound his form in a very controlled manner, rolling one vertebra at a time to ensure the maximum amount of work for his muscles.   
  
“I get it – you wanting to take care of your mom, wanting to protect her and Thea, but, Oliver, this is not how you do it. Because of what you do... what we do, their lives are already dangerous enough without you dragging the mob any further into this. You want answers, and we'll get them... but not by you playing footsie with Helena Bertinelli.  
  
“You know, she lost a fiance, right?” In response to Digg's question, Oliver allowed his feet to slip from around the pipe. He rolled into a ball, allowed his body to flip once in the air, and then landed with his feet on the floor in a crouch. As Diggle kept talking, he moved towards the salmon ladder. “After I saw you two together on the news, I started doing some digging into her past, wanting to be prepared for whatever mess you got us into this time. And that past, Oliver? It's not pretty. There were rumors of the fiance turning rat. Whether they were true or not, he still died because of the life, and Helena has been a mess ever since. I know you've cornered the market in complicated relationships, but I don't think even you are prepared for the amount of baggage that comes with Helena Bertinelli.”  
  
Perhaps, if Oliver hadn't gone to Felicity's that night, what John was saying about the Bertinelli family would have interested him. But he had, and so, now, the last thing on his mind was Helena and whatever her role was in the events that ended with Oliver's mother being shot at that afternoon. That's what he should have been stewing over, worried about, but he couldn't focus on anything but Felicity's words, Felicity's pain, Felicity's voiced request that he leave and her silent plea that he never come back. And that – she was just supposed to be a mark, someone who furthered his mission, yet she had somehow managed to force away everything else, making Oliver lose his focus entirely – was what made him so angry, was what was driving him as he desperately trained late into the night. Helena Bertinelli, in comparison, just didn't matter.  
  
“But maybe this isn't about Helena; maybe it's about another woman entirely.” Hearing Digg's words, Oliver paused halfway back down the rungs. Gripping the bar tightly, he fairly ground his skin against the metal – his hold suddenly far too tight to be effective. Without seeming to even try, John had simply tossed out a suggestion that was far too close to the truth for Oliver's comfort. He had been careful with Felicity, hiding their... interactions after that first night from everyone, including Diggle. While he didn't react any further towards the other man's suspicion, he waited until Digg started to talk once more before he felt like he could move once again, the ringing of metal against metal masking his relief when John proved he was no closer to the truth than he had been before.  
  
“If I saw the story about you out to dinner with Helena, then surely your family, your friends, _Laurel_ saw it, too.” Oliver had no idea if Diggle had noticed his pause. He had yet to look up and over at the other man, and John just continued to talk – either unaware of just how close he had come to the truth or purposefully lulling Oliver into a false sense of security by not commenting upon the tell. “Let me guess: she confronted you about the date? She's moved on with Tommy, and you've apologized. Laurel can claim all she wants that she just wants to move past everything that happened between the two of you, but, as soon as you show interest in another woman – especially one like Helena Bertinelli, she's going to start coming around again. And she did tonight, didn't she? She probably claimed that she was just concerned about you, wanted you to know exactly who it was you were getting into bed with so to speak... or at least I hope you haven't slept with Helena yet. But I think we both know that Laurel is not your frie....”  
  
“Felicity!,” Oliver roared. He dropped from the salmon ladder, slammed the bar down upon the floor, and faced Diggle with his wrath on full display. His hands were clenched into fists. He could feel his nose flaring as he breathed heavily, deeply – not from exertion but in an attempt to curb his need to hit something. Someone. With feet braced shoulder-width apart and his arms tense at his sides, Oliver paused for only a moment to realize that he had lost control of his temper and his emotions for the second time that evening, Digg's scrutiny obliterating his walls – not because of Oliver's need to protect Laurel but because for reasons he certainly couldn't explore – not then, perhaps not ever – the idea of denying Felicity's place in his life seemed worse than exposing their secret. “This has nothing to do with anyone else – my mother, Thea, Helena, Laurel – and everything to do with Felicity!”  
  
John stood, placing his hands upon the desktop and leaning forward with his arms braced out in front of him. His eyes narrowed in acute observation. “The cute IT girl from your family's company?”  
  
“Don't,” Oliver snapped. He held a hand up in warning, but he held himself back from physically approaching the other man. “Don't... dismiss her with just a label. She does that, too, but Felicity is more than just another... weapon... we use for help.”  
  
Digg's head tilted to the side. “I know that, Oliver. I know she's a person with feelings, and complications, and a life that is important outside of your father's mission. But, for you, she isn't any of those things, right? For you, she's the last resort when you can't figure something out tech-wise. She's dead drops, and encrypted emails, and anonymous messages. She was one fake date in order to convince Lance, your step-father, and Felicity herself that you weren't The Hood.”  
  
She was.... Well, Oliver wasn't exactly sure where he should start in explaining exactly who Felicity Smoak was to him and why she had him so worked up that evening. “It's complicated.”  
  
A carefully controlled wall of irritation made its way across Digg's features. “Then uncomplicate it for me, Oliver.”  
  
Grinding his jaw, Oliver complied with Diggle's... request, but it took every last ounce of his restraint to remain in control. “When I told you about my first meeting with Felicity, I... left some things out.”  
  
“Yeah, I remember,” John replied dryly. “You were cagey. Go figure.”  
  
“She had this ringtone. With gunshots.” At that, Digg perked up, standing straight once again. His fingers were tented against the desk, and a gleam of comprehension flashed through his dark eyes. “When I heard it, I didn't... react well.”  
  
“You had an episode,” Diggle supplied. When Oliver grimaced and stepped away, he clarified further. “You had a flashback to the island, and you reacted the way you were trained to there.” Softening his voice in concern, Digg asked, “was the girl hurt?” He was too nice to question if Oliver was the one to hurt her, but they both knew what he was wondering.  
  
“No,” Oliver answered softly. He was still facing away from the other man. “I didn't attack her; I protected her... or at least who she was inside of my mind. And she...,” he exhaled sharply, nodding his head in remembrance. “She talked me down, brought me back, made me feel safe.”  
  
Oliver turned back around in time to see the look of shock that passed over John's face. Whether that shock was surprise that Oliver was admitting so much or astonishment that Felicity was capable of having such an impact upon him the first time he met her, Oliver didn't ask. Frankly, Oliver wasn't sure if he wanted to know. “So, then, she didn't figure out that you were The Hood. Instead, she discovered that you're suffering from PTSD – and you are, Oliver, whether you want to admit it or not – and, concerned, she went to your step-father.”  
  
He shrugged, approaching the computer station. “She might have figured out my secret as well. I'm not sure at this point. But that's not what I was worried about when I called you here that night, when I came up with my plan. I knew that, even if she did suspect that I was The Hood, whatever we did to disabuse Detective Lance of that same idea would work on her as well. And Walter... if she had shared her suspicions with him, though I was pretty sure she hadn't.”  
  
“While I don't appreciate being lied to, Oliver, none of this explains your mood tonight.” Before he could respond, John pressed, “did Felicity find something? Did you put her to work on this thing with your mom?”  
  
Stepping away again, Oliver muttered, “not exactly.” Rather than giving him a hard time for being so evasive, Diggle simply waited patiently, watching Oliver closely as he prowled his way around the basement. He could feel the need to move, to destroy, to avoid through training starting to bubble up inside of his gut once more. His hands itched with the need to handle his bow – to feel the rasp of the string against the pads of his fingers as he loosed arrow after arrow towards a target. When he came to stand next to his arrowheads, Oliver paused, lifting a single digit towards one and allowing its sharp point to barely pierce the skin of his index finger. The sting was grounding. Softly, he confessed, “I... I like her, Digg.”  
  
“Who, Felicity?” The other man shrugged. He wasn't dismissing Oliver's claim, just wordlessly acknowledging it as unnecessary. “She seems like a nice enough girl. Smart.”  
  
“She is,” he agreed. But Oliver didn't leave it at that. “She was also the first person who made me genuinely laugh since I've been home. Felicity has this... way about her. She's disarming. She... makes me want to try. And she's beautiful.”  
  
Diggle snorted, shaking his head in amusement. “Of course she is.”  
  
“Felicity... when I'm with her, she makes everything else seem... better. She actually makes me happy.”  
  
The other man's arms were once more folded over his chest. “Why do I have a feeling that you're talking about more than just the three meetings with her that I'm aware of?”  
  
Without backing down, without blinking, without apology, and without shame, Oliver admitted, “because we've been... dating for the past three weeks.”  
  
Bluntly and with a pointed frown, Digg remarked, “well, that explains a lot – why you haven't been pursuing the list with your usual vigor, why you were open to the idea of going after someone not marked for death by your father, why I've actually been getting eight hours of sleep every night. And here I thought you were starting to heal.” When Oliver went to say something, John cut him off – a curious, perceptive smirk lighting up his face. “Or maybe you are... or were, judging by the freakout I walked into tonight. It was the girl – Felicity – who was helping you, wasn't it?”  
  
He wasn't ready to consider that thought – that Felicity was helping him move past his five years of hell away from Starling City, but Oliver could admit, at least to himself, that he had allowed her to distract him from his mission, that she had clouded his judgement that evening when it came to protecting his family, and that he was furious with himself for the weakness he showed in allowing her into his life in the first place. It put everything and everyone at risk – no one more so than Felicity herself. So, instead of addressing Digg's remarks, he tried to shift their conversation in another direction. “You were right earlier when you said that, if you saw me on the news with Helena, so did others. Felicity saw, she wasn't pleased, and it made her realize that I've been using her this whole time to cover up my... demons.” That was as far as Oliver was willing to go in admitting to his PTSD.   
  
John, however, refused to be sidetracked. “And you're upset that you hurt her, because you have real feelings for this girl.” When he went to argue, Diggle sat down in the desk chair and held a hand up in request for silence. “That wasn't a judgment, Oliver. Just an observation. And maybe it isn't such a bad thing.”  
  
His own hands dropped from the work station to his sides. Without conscious thought, Oliver found himself rubbing his thumb and middle finger together... like he had his bow in his hands. “You were the one who didn't want her involved in the first place.”  
  
“I'm not saying you should bring her onto the team, Oliver; I'm just suggesting that it might be a good idea if you had someone in your life that you could actually talk to.”  
  
“I have you,” he quipped, earning a non-amused glower. “I talk to you. We're talking.”  
  
“Because I practically forced the issue,” Digg accused. “And I have a feeling that you've told Felicity more about yourself – and I'm not talking about your Hood persona but you, Oliver Queen, as you are today – and what you went through on that island in that one incident you shared in her office all those weeks ago than you have in working with me for almost a month.” Challenging him further, John asked, “am I wrong?”  
  
Practically biting his tongue in annoyance and with his left eye twitching, Oliver allowed, “Felicity can be... perceptive.”  
  
“Well, you need to talk to someone, Oliver, because we both know that you're never going to get professional help.” Standing up, John reached for his jacket, shrugging it on as he continued to talk. “Maybe you can't be completely honest with her, but no relationship is ever completely free of secrets. Felicity can never find out about what we do here. However, you can tell her the truth about everything else, and dating – hell, loving – Oliver Queen isn't dangerous... at least, not these days.”  
  
Without another word, Diggle nodded his goodnight and turned to leave. Oliver watched him go, working through everything the other man had said and recommended. There was just one problem with Digg's suggestion, though: if he went there with Felicity, if he let her in completely and actually tried with her, then there was no way he'd be able to hide the truth about his mission from her. Hell, he wasn't even convinced that she didn't know already.   
  
Blindly reaching for his supplies, Oliver loaded his quiver before shouldering it. With one hand, he picked up his bow; with the other, he grabbed several new, unopened containers of tennis balls and headed towards his makeshift target range. With John's advice, with Felicity's hurt, with his mother's pained face, with his sister's disappointment, and with his own feelings of inadequacy to taunt him, Oliver knew sleep would not come easily to him that night. Even if it did, for the first time in weeks, it'd be filled with nightmares once again, and he would rather risk exhaustion than the torment of his own memories. Prepared for yet another sleepless night, he sent four tennis balls bouncing into the damp air of the otherwise still and silent foundry.


	5. Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello All,
> 
> As you'll notice above, there is only one more post remaining after this update. As warned in one of my comments to the last chapter, Felicity won't be in this part... at least not in a traditional sense, and it definitely won't feature her POV. However, this chapter is essential to the future development of Oliver and Felicity's relationship... whatever that may be. As always, thanks for reading and enjoy!
> 
> ~Charlynn~

**Part Five**

Oliver was cold.  
  
For anyone else, such a realization wouldn't have been startling, but Oliver had long since learned to ignore his body's reactions to trivial matters such as temperature. A lack of warmth, hunger, comfort, they had been his near constant companions for five long years. So, it was the fact that he actually noticed the chill that swept across his body – bringing the long since forgotten sensation, and now weakness, of goosebumps with it – that made him open his eyes. He was in his room, however – the same room that had been his since birth and even in death, in his family home, on the floor exactly where he had hesitantly placed himself an hour earlier with the design of getting some sleep. Nothing was changed, nothing was altered. There were no threats. And yet....  
  
Standing up, Oliver reached for the simple t-shirt he had previously cast aside. As he slipped it over his head, he pushed his feet into his boots – boots that he always left tied and ready... just to be prepared. If it wasn't for what he knew would be Raisa's complaints about Oliver soiling her carpets and linens, he would have slept in his boots. His fingers itched for his bow, but he kept that at the foundry, simply to curb any sudden impulses to patrol or attack when he wasn't fully prepared. Instead, as Oliver silently yet quickly crept out of his bedroom, he grabbed a small, sheathed dagger he kept hidden below a false bottom of his desk drawer, shoving it between the waistband of his pants and the scarred small of his back. He didn't want to be without a weapon, but, for now – at least until he knew what he was up against... if anything, Oliver preferred to have his hands free.   
  
The house was still, everyone asleep. No one stirred at his movements, and Oliver never encountered anything or anyone he shouldn't have. But, still, he didn't return to his room; that chill of awareness didn't leave him. Deciding he needed to check the grounds as well, Oliver elected to leave the house through a pair of French doors in a room not often used by his family. Those French doors led to a brick pavered patio which he moved across just as soundlessly as if he were walking on plush, thick carpet. At first glance, the grounds seemed undisturbed, but the Queens owned more property than what even Oliver's trained eye could observe in a single glance.   
  
Slowly, he crept along, his body primed for a fight that just... didn't want to present itself. Oliver checked the massive garage which housed a grotesque amount of cars, and SUV's, and various other luxury vehicles – toys his former spoiled, entitled self had once believed all necessary. But, just as the house had been undisturbed, so, too, was the garage... and the gardener's shed, the greenhouse, the pool, and the more formal gardens his mother used to entertain her society maven friends. All that was left besides the woods which surrounded the property on three sides was the more informal part of the back lawn – the place where he, and Thea, and Tommy had played as children and where, now, his and his father's graves stood empty yet sentinel. For some reason, Oliver was avoiding that reminder of his own mortality, of his promise, of his mission; for some reason, he knew that those graves were where he both needed and absolutely did not want to be.  
  
“Ah, Mr. Queen, I see you finally decided to join us. Welcome!”  
  
It didn't matter how many years would pass, how many lives Oliver would take, how many last words he would hear, he would never forget that voice – that condescending, derisive voice. “You're dead!”  
  
“Why, because you shot him,” another unforgettable tone taunted. With wide, horrified eyes, Oliver watched as Slade Wilson emerged from the trees. He was dressed in exactly the same way he had been the last time Oliver had seen him – ready for death – except, instead of the arrow Oliver had driven through his eye, his once friend now sported an eye-patch. “Much to my embarrassment since I trained you, you're not that good of a shot, Kid. Although... maybe I should be grateful, all things considered.”  
  
Stabbing a finger in rage, in accusation, in denial towards Slade's direction, Oliver leveled, “you're not real. None of this is real, because it's just a dream. A nightmare.” Weren't you supposed to wake up once you realized you were trapped in your own mind? Feeling his desperation turning into panic, Oliver bellowed, “you're dead, too!”  
  
“Well, apparently,” Slade returned with an air of mirth, “the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated... something you're, unfortunately, familiar with yourself. Just think of everything that could have been avoided if you had just died on that yacht. If nothing else, we wouldn't be here right now, would we?” With his question that was actually nothing more than an eloquent if not intimidating statement, Slade made a dramatic gesture towards the lawn directly in front of the empty graves, the lawn where Ivo stood, the lawn that separated Oliver from the man who long ago – what felt like a lifetime ago – had kept him from sure death.   
  
But Oliver didn't want to look down the slight slope. At first, when he had heard their regrettably familiar voices, he had been absolutely sure that this was yet another nightmare. Normally, his dreams carried him back to Lian Yu, so this was a different way for his memories to be morphed and manipulated into haunting him but still no less potent. However, even with awareness of what should have been impossible, the torment and agony weren't letting go of him. He wasn't waking. He wasn't banishing these ghosts to the back of his mind until the next time they met when Oliver was weakened by exhaustion. And, perhaps worst of all, this dream wasn't like any others he had previously experienced, so it was unpredictable. Wild. Raw. That was, if it even truly was a dream.  
  
There was only one way to move forward – whether it was to confront the hell that was his own subconscious or to confront a very much alive and real Slade and Ivo – and that was to do what they wanted. He didn't have to react, however. So, steeling himself, Oliver clenched his jaw and flexed his tense hands in preparation for a fight, needing to stay loose and alert. If this was a dream, when he looked at the scene before him, he'd find the familiar tableau of two women and one impossible choice; if it wasn't a dream, well.... Oliver really didn't even want to consider that option.  
  
So, he looked.   
  
Nothing he could have done or said could have prepared him for what he saw.  
  
Her back was to him, curved her body slightly inward. He wasn't sure if it was her natural instinct to protect herself or if she was already hurt, but neither explanation was comforting. While her hair might have been blonde, it wasn't the shade he was expecting; and, if it made him a bastard than so be it, but it wasn't the shade of blonde he was hoping for either. Her neck, shoulders, and arms were bare. Dirt and the fine mist that seemed to cling to the air around them combined against her otherwise pale and delicate skin, creating swirls of mud. Dead leaves clung to her. Distantly, Oliver found himself wondering where her sweater was. He remembered her having one that night of their first date, but it was missing now. One of her pink shoes laid forgotten, no doubt wrenched off as she struggled to fight off the man currently holding an all too familiar gun to the center of her forehead.  
  
“While I'm not immune to the charms of a tender reunion, this little trip down memory lane had gone on long enough. It's time to choose, Mr. Queen,” Ivo informed him blandly.   
  
But choose what? There was no one else there. It was just Ivo – Ivo, and his gun, his threats, his promise of recreating the past, Slade, Oliver, and Felicity, and Oliver was not under the illusion, not this time, that he could talk the mad doctor out of his plans or convince him to shoot Oliver himself – or even Slade – instead. So, he just stood there, paralyzed in his vulnerability and impotence. It wasn't until she whimpered, until she pleaded for his help with a simple, broken, “Oliver?,” that he was spurred into action.   
  
“She has nothing to do with this,” Oliver screamed at Ivo, for now ignoring Slade because he didn't seem to be the most pressing threat. “She's not even a part of my life, not really. She doesn't know who I am, who you are, why this is happening to her. She... I didn't even know her when we were all on that island. Meeting her... was an accident. I didn't plan it. And she shouldn't be punished for....”  
  
“For what, Kid,” Slade interrupted, suddenly appearing just behind Oliver's shoulder. He leaned down and in, whispering. The lower tone and volume of Slade's voice just made it that much more hostile. “Fate? Happenstance? Serendipity? Never in a million years could I have predicted Shado, but that's what made my feelings for her that much more powerful. It's the things we don't plan for that can be our greatest strengths and our greatest weaknesses. That can hurt us the most.”  
  
Oliver didn't wait for the command that he knew was coming. He leapt forward, screaming, “no!,” and tried to get in the path of the bullet, but it was already too late. Behind him, Slade barked, “do it,” and then Ivo pulled the trigger, and then Felicity was slumped down onto the wet, brown with the death of winter and brown with the blood of death ground before Oliver even had a chance to do... anything. As he fell to his knees in surrender, in resignation and defeat, in anguish, Oliver helplessly watched as Ivo kicked Felicity's lifeless body over. The gesture was so... dismissive, so careless, and it left her lying on her back in some twisted still-life of resignation. It was like, in that moment when Ivo fired the gun, Felicity had already given up.   
  
She had already given up on him.  
  
Unblinking, Oliver stared at her lifeless form. As the seconds ticked by into minutes, he watched as the little color she had managed to retain in the chill of the December air drained away along with her blood. A puddle formed beneath her head, spreading until it touched her muddied yet still flawless skin, her floral top. While her mouth was closed, having accepted that he was going to fail her and refusing to call out for him one last time, her eyes were wide and frozen with the horror of acknowledging her own impending death. Above them, an inch above the bridge of her nose, there was a perfectly round entrance point, the trickle of blood from the wound belying the trauma sustained by the back of her skull, her brain – her beautiful, precious brain.   
  
“It didn't have to be this way, Mr. Queen,” Ivo admonished with, somehow at the same time, both a frown and a smirk. “I didn't want to do this, but you left me no choice. You were the one who refused to talk to her, who walked away, who left her unprotected.” Before walking past him, Ivo slipped the gun into Oliver's loose and limp right hand. “Maybe I held the gun to Miss Smoak's head, but you pulled that trigger.”  
  
“That's because he's weak,” Slade announced implacably. Despite knowing better, Oliver turned to look at his former friend, choking on his own breath when, instead of an eye-patch, he encountered an arrow once more. But that wasn't the only thing unnerving about Slade's appearance; the other man was also bleeding from his eyes, nose, and mouth. He was death itself.  
  
Before Oliver had a chance to adjust, someone else was talking – someone new yet also from his past, someone he never thought he'd see or hear from again but whose face and voice he'd never forget: Yao Fei. He, too, had been shot in the head, but, despite once being Oliver's friend and mentor, it didn't hurt as much to see the proof of his lifelessness as it did Felicity's. That didn't mean that his judgement against Oliver still didn't sting. “A coward.”  
  
Like father, like daughter, Shado, too, had been shot in the head by a madman, and, she, too, was also there to voice her disregard, her derision for Oliver. “A liability.”  
  
“Don't forget a cheat,” Sara Lance piped up. Oliver didn't want to look at her, he willed his body not to, but the choice seemed to be out of his hands. Sara was just... there, propped like a rag doll against his gravestone. She was bloodied with lacerations and bruised. Her skin was blue and slightly bloated, her eyes hemorrhaged. Her hands were fixed like claws, like she was trying to find something, anything, to grab onto, and there was algae growing along her face, neck, and arms. Is this what it really meant to drown; is this what it looked like? If Oliver was convinced this was actually a nightmare, then he'd dismiss what he was seeing as his own overactive, self-torturing imagination, but, despite the impossibility of all his greatest regrets and losses coming back to ridicule him, he wasn't sure whether he was asleep or awake.  
  
Alive or dead.  
  
But then his father spoke. _His dad_. For years, Oliver had wished for the chance to talk to his dad just one last time, but, now that it was finally happening, his father was voicing one of Oliver's greatest fears. Eyes empty not with death but with contempt and with half of his face missing from the self-inflicted gunshot wound that had taken his life, Robert Queen criticized, “he was always such a disappointment.”  
  
“And a liar,” a soft, quiet, final voice added. Gaze ricocheting away from his father's, Oliver was confronted with a very dead Felicity now sitting up and staring at the gun held forgotten in Oliver's hand. She wasn't angry or even sad; she was just hurt, and that stung far more than anything else.  
  
Maybe this was the punishment he deserved, but he couldn't handle anymore. Surging to his feet, he turned to run away.  
  
And then he woke up.

 

...

 

For the past week and a half, Oliver had been pushing his body to its limits – to the point where it either forced him to rest or it would start to shut down. When he closed his eyes, however, he dreamed. At first, it was just recollections, but, as painful as they were, they were his, and Oliver owned them. They were the burden he would have to carry for the rest of his life... however short it may be. But, after the nightmare where he had watched Felicity die and then was confronted with those people he had cared about whose lives he was either directly or indirectly responsible for taking, his memories had continued to be twisted around and toyed with – made worse... which, a few days prior, Oliver wouldn't have believed possible. Now, at this point, death by sleep deprivation was starting to look like his better option.   
  
In order to stay awake, it would have helped if he could have stayed under the hood hunting and patrolling all night until the sun came up, but Diggle was already suspicious enough as it was. If Oliver refused to stop, refused to leave the foundry, then he had no doubt that the ex-soldier would take that decision out of Oliver's hands. He'd shoot him with a tranquilizer dart or drug him, and then it wouldn't be a few hours of insanity disguised as torture but an entire night. Even the thought of eight hours of dreams was unbearable.   
  
But that left Oliver with those lonely witching hours to somehow occupy. He couldn't even research his targets, because he was so exhausted that any length of time sitting down would immediately put him to sleep. And with that weariness came an inability to even train. Being able to hit something – whether with his fist or with his bow – would have alleviated some of the tension he was constantly living under and with, but, physically, it just seemed an impossibility at this point. His body was dangerously weak.   
  
So, Oliver walked the halls at night – like the ghost he sometimes thought he might be. Up, and down, and around until the point of dizziness, but he couldn't stop. If he stopped, he'd sit down, and, if he sat down, the oblivion of rest would bring the devastation of dreams. If his family knew of his restlessness, they didn't say anything. Oliver wasn't sure if that was due to their own senses of self-preservation or if, after the way he had treated them since being home, they simply couldn't find it within their hearts any more to care.   
  
“Oliver, before you go back to wearing a path in your mother's fine carpets, may I have a minute?”  
  
Sucking in a breath of surprise, for he had not noticed Walter sitting behind his father's – no, it would now be Walter's – desk, Oliver blinked several times in rapid succession to get his bearings and wits about him before wordlessly agreeing to the request by stepping into the study. Walter indicated for him to take a seat, but, with his fears nipping at his heels, Oliver chose to remain standing, loosely clasping his hands behind his back. “What are you still doing up, Walter?”  
  
With a lift of his brows – whether in emphasis or just to appear more approachable, Oliver's step-father offered a simple, “foreign markets,” as an answer. “But I didn't call you in here to talk about business.”  
  
“Right. Because you think I'm an idiot.”  
  
“No, Oliver, you're the one who doesn't believe in your own capabilities,” Walter contradicted. “I'm not going to discuss QC with you, because you've made it abundantly clear that you're not interested in the company.”  
  
“Well, gold star for you, Walter,” Oliver complimented facetiously. “Someone around here is finally paying attention.”  
  
“Oh, my observational skills have never been taken for lacking, Oliver.” Standing, the older man leaned forward, bracing himself against the desktop. “Take for example Miss Smoak.”  
  
Although Oliver felt his features harden and the muscles in his back become set, he tried to keep his voice unaffected. Forcing a tone of confusion, he questioned, “Miss Smoak?” Before Walter could reply, he feigned a moment of realization. “Oh, you mean Felicity,” the off-handed way he recalled and then said her name meant as a dismissal and degradation. Whistling in appreciation, he said, “she's not exactly my type, but I can see the appeal. My father always had....”  
  
“Don't, Oliver.”   
  
Walter's tone made it clear that he refused to entertain Oliver's disrespect. Internally, he sighed, grateful. He didn't want to go there with his step-father, especially not at Felicity's expense, and, despite his own unsettled acceptance of his mother's second marriage, Oliver didn't believe Walter to be an unfaithful husband. In fact, Oliver was convinced that Walter Steele was a good man – a man of honor, and respect, and loyalty.   
  
“If I didn't know that this... show you're putting on right now is all in an effort to make me dismiss you as nothing more than a shallow, simple bon vivant, then I would have kindly asked you to leave this house immediately, but I do know that it's an act, and I hope that you have more regard for both your mother and Miss Smoak to ever believe me capable of the disgusting things you were just implying.” Taking a breath, Walter stood up straight and crossed his arms over his chest, his gaze narrowing in suspicion. “Are you not well, Oliver?”  
  
Despite being so easily seen through, he continued with his ruse. “Just maybe a little hungover.”  
  
“Hmm, yes,” Walter murmured more than actually said. With a pointed quirk of his brow, he continued, “just like how you were drunk at the Applied Sciences' building dedication.”  
  
Denial and avoidance getting him nowhere, Oliver decided to give up the pretense. Allowing his arms to swing forward, he shrugged his shoulders before bracing his hands against his hips. “What do you want, Walter?”  
  
“I want to know what you did to Miss Smoak.”  
  
The dismissal was ready and waiting and flew easily off his tongue. “Nothing. In fact, I haven't seen Felicity in nearly two weeks.”  
  
“Well, then, that just confirms my suspicions, because it was almost two weeks ago that I noticed the difference in her and her work.”  
  
Oliver tried for the biggest, and brightest, and most conceited smile he could muster. “It's called withdrawal. She must really be missing me.”  
  
But Walter ignored his flippancy, his shoddy excuse, his playboy attitude. “She's reserved and aloof. Distracted. She's lost weight, there are dark circles under her eyes, and she's sad. Always and perpetually sad.” Sobered by Walter's words, Oliver arms fell limply to his sides. He shuffled his feet. “When Miss Smoak came to me about your little... incident, I made it clear that your... difficulties were a family matter. While not in so many words, I impressed upon her that she should stay out of it. So, when I heard that the two of you were seeing each other....” Oliver tried to protest, but Walter wouldn't hear of it, cutting him off before he could even attempt to get a word in. “Well, let's just say that I wasn't pleased. But it wasn't because I was trying to protect you, Oliver, or even the family; rather, I was worried for Miss Smoak – for her safety, for her heart. After a few weeks, however, she seemed happy, and you seemed... if not better than at least improving. Lighter, perhaps. Almost two weeks ago, however, that all changed... for the both of you. In Miss Smoak's case, she became a shadow of her former self; as for you, Oliver, well, you seemed to regress. Now, every time I look at you, it's like that night you nearly killed your mother in your sleep. You look... haunted.”  
  
Silence fell between them, and Oliver didn't know how to respond. While he was aware of what staying away from Felicity was doing to him, he had been unaware that she was in pain, too... which was ridiculous and selfish. Just because she pushed him away, just because it was her decision to end the farce of a relationship he had been willing to offer her, that didn't mean that she wasn't unaffected. Hell, even that night when she had asked him to leave her home and essentially her life as well, she had admitted that he had hurt her. Recognizing something on a surface level and being confronted by the depth of the damage he had caused were two entirely different matters, however.   
  
Swallowing past the lump of emotion crushing his throat, Oliver addressed his step-father. “What is it exactly that you're asking me, Walter?”  
  
“No, Oliver,” Walter sighed, relaxing his arms and reclaiming his seat. “This isn't a query but a demand.” A strength Oliver never would have expected before this conversation entered the older man's voice. “Fix. It. Fix her, fix yourself, fix your relationship. If not, I'll be forced to take action, and Oliver?” Without waiting for a response, Walter's gaze fell dismissively back onto his paperwork. “You won't like what I am prepared to do.”  
  
He had no doubt.

 

...

 

Despite the damage already having been done by his _dinner_ with Helena, Oliver did not return to the ruse after Felicity pushed him away. Rather than protect his family with vigilantism, Diggle persuaded him to use vigilance, taking point himself in increasing the Queen family's security. So, when Oliver did don the hood after that fateful night, it was simply to cross another name off his father's list. Nothing less, nothing more. Although he had organized crime connections himself, whatever was happening with Frank Bertinelli's business had nothing to do with Oliver, Queen Consolidated, or his mission. With his men dropping faster than he could replace them even with the ready-supply of criminals Starling City always seemed to have at its disposal, Bertinelli was far too distracted to continue his push for the Applied Sciences' project bid, and Oliver accepted the fact that what happened to his mother was an unfortunate coincidence and not an active threat.  
  
However, that lack of diligence on his part had now resulted in an all-out turf war between the Bertinelli family and the Triad. The ironic part of the story was that Oliver had been right when he told Felicity that he didn't think it was the Triad targeting Bertinelli's men. He, however, was the only one who doubted the Chinese organization's culpability, and Bertinelli had targeted China White and her soldiers in retaliation. To add fuel to the fire, the real culprit behind the war continued to take shots at her own people, while increasing her attack and targeting Triad members as well. Helena didn't care who died at her hands. In what Oliver now knew was a quest for vengeance in her murdered fiance's name, Helena would kill anyone if it got her one step closer to eliminating her own father.   
  
At first, Oliver had tried to ignore the escalating violence. If the Italian Mob and the Triad wanted to destroy each other, so be it. Yes, innocent lives were lost in the process, but he was just one man, and he couldn't save everyone. Plus, he wasn't Starling City's savior; he was its executioner. Those men and women killing themselves in the name of territory and _family loyalty_ , while perhaps not necessarily on his list by name, were all deserving of their bloody, messy ends. Plus, the Bratva, as an organization, had elected to stay as far away from the firefight as possible, salivating on the sidelines at the promise of tripling their territory if Bertinelli and China White succeeding in eliminating the other's businesses. But then their war started to bleed into his battle, getting in his way and interrupting his mission, and Oliver... snapped.   
  
Their current target left only a small window of opportunity for attack. While Digg coordinated Oliver's route and advised him over the comms from the foundry, Oliver had taken his bike and gone out to either retrieve what had been stolen from the people of Starling City or to make sure that at least one person didn't have the chance to take advantage of the city's residents again. Only, while on his way, he had been cut off by another bike. Oliver had nearly gone down. It had taken some complicated maneuvering, and he would need a new pair of boots and his suit repaired after managing to barely catch himself. By the time he had righted his Ducati, Oliver's last nerve had frayed to the point of disregarding his own plans in order to chase after the person who, in their rush and recklessness, had nearly made them impossible.  
  
It didn't take Oliver long to catch up with the other biker. They weren't as competent of a rider, and their motorcycle itself wasn't as powerful. In fact, it was quite small... which was suspicious in and of itself. However, his suspicions didn't turn into fact until the other bike started to slowly, in a round-about way, head towards the Little Italy portion of Starling City. In fact, it was when Oliver saw the impression of more than the actual sign to Russo's that he realized that he was, in fact, chasing after the shooter that had put his mother's life at risk, that he was chasing after the person responsible for the city's current mafia war, that he was ready to take out the very same woman who had served as the impetus to Felicity asking him to leave her alone.   
  
Helena.  
  
Steering his bike with only one hand, Oliver freed the other... and the flechettes strapped to his right wrist. Aiming for the other bike's wheels, he caused her to wreck, Helena going down hard due to their velocity. As Oliver swerved out of her way, Helena herself rolled across the alley's wet and dirty pavement, her bike sliding even further along the narrow road until it eventually connected with a wall. Despite what had to be a nearly debilitating case of road rash, Helena refused to surrender, already reaching for her gun before Oliver could even climb off his own bike. But he was prepared for that move, knew that she would try to shoot her way through the pain, through the fear. Because that's exactly what she was. She wasn't brave; she wasn't strong. Helena was a scared little girl who lacked the emotional maturity to handle her grief, and she had a mountain load of daddy issues on top of all the other baggage she carried around.   
  
Diggle was screeching in his ear, demanding an explanation as to what was going on, and Helena was screaming that, if he took one step closer.... Before either could finish their threat, Oliver ripped his comlink out, smashing it beneath his foot, and loosed an arrow from his bow which rendered the arm Helena used to shoot useless, forcing the irate and bleeding woman to drop her weapon. While Oliver should have walked away then – Helena had been neutralized, and he still had time to reach his target before the window of opportunity slammed shut, he was well past the point of no return. He was exhausted, and felt threatened, and was on his last damn thread of control. Although Helena hadn't been the one to push him to such extremes, she was going to pay the consequences.  
  
Striding forward, Oliver gripped her helmet with one hand and ripped it off her head, uncaring how much it hurt her or how much attention her screams might draw. As soon as it was freed, he tossed it aside in the very same movement, allowing his momentum to carry the heavy, dense object right out of his grip. Simultaneously, Oliver used his other hand to wrap it around Helena's throat, lifting her and pushing her back into the brick wall behind them. As she choked beneath his hold, her uninjured arm rising to scratch ineffectively against his wrist, he shook her. Surprisingly, she didn't scream. She didn't look away. It was like there was a part of her that welcomed the mistreatment, that wanted him to kill her.   
  
“Do you know how many lives you've taken,” Oliver asked rhetorically, his voice low, and rough, and nothing like the voice Helena would remember from their one, abandoned meal together. “Do you realize how many deaths your actions have caused?” After allowing a moment for his questions to sink in, he once more continued, “and I was willing to let all of that go, to ignore you and your bloody vendetta, but then you. Got. In. My. Way.” Oliver fairly growled his last five words.  
  
Sagging against his hold and dropping her uninjured arm back down to her side, Helena smirked, and, for the first time since he attacked her, she spoke. The words were what he wanted to hear, but the meaning behind them was all wrong. Rather than genuine sorrow, Helena mocked him when she gasped, “I'm sorry.”  
  
Oliver felt his eyes narrow in rage, his arms ripple with suppressed strength. Just as he was about to apply enough pressure to snap Helena's neck, her features started to morph. The lines of her face softened, became more round. Her eyes suddenly took on a warmth he had witnessed when looking at one woman and one woman only, and her hair color went from dark brown to a golden blonde. Her lips became ripe and pink instead of the color of blood.   
  
Gagging against his own horror, his own guilt, his own sorrow, Oliver backed away from the woman before him as quickly as his feet would carry him. One moment, he had been choking the life out of Helena Bertinelli, and then the next it was Felicity's delicate throat beneath his deadly hand, her innocence tainted and her vibrancy dimmed by his touch. Only once there were several yards between them did Oliver finally stop moving, his right hand lifting in supplication rather than in murderous intent. “I didn't mean... I wouldn't... Oh, god, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Felicity.”  
  
And then the woman laughed, and the world righted itself again.   
  
It wasn't Felicity standing in front of him, her neck already bruised by the pressure of his fingers, but Helena once more. And she was smiling and laughing with maniacal glee, absolutely giddy with knowledge of his weakness and completely ignorant of her own discomfort or pain. Despite the fact that she was still very much at his mercy – her only weapon lost somewhere in the shadows, she no longer feared or respected him.   
  
Shakily pushing off the brick wall, Helena stalked towards him. With every step she took, she seemed to regain more of her strength. “Felicity, huh? That's a very beautiful... and rare name. Just how long do you think it'll take me to find this Felicity of yours?” Answering for him, Helena predicted, “not long, I'd bet, though I do so enjoy the hunt.”  
  
Oliver didn't bother to warn her away, to threaten her. He understood Helena enough to realize that she wouldn't go after Felicity until her father was dead, and the chances of Helena surviving Frank Bertinelli's death or the war she had started long enough to seek out and find Felicity was slim to none. So, instead, before he could do something else that he would regret, that would haunt him, Oliver climbed onto his bike and drove away.   
  
By the time he got back to the foundry, Digg was gone, and his hands still hadn't stopped trembling.

 


	6. Part Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello,
> 
> And this post marks the end of this story. I'll be back with something else, something new, soon. Until then, enjoy! Thanks for reading.
> 
> ~Charlynn~

**Part Six**

He was losing chunks of time.  
  
It wasn't so much that Oliver was getting lost in his own mind, reliving the past through flashbacks and nightmares, but that it was just... gone. Or, more accurately, he was. One minute, he'd be in the foundry making new arrowheads, or getting behind the wheel of whatever car he was currently driving, or discussing some trivial matter about the club with Tommy, and then the next thing Oliver knew, he'd be somewhere completely different – hours gone without his knowledge and with no recollection of how he had moved from Point A to Point B. It would have been dangerous if he were still pursuing the list, but, after his hallucination... or whatever it was that had happened with Helena Bertinelli, Oliver hadn't once put on the hood since.   
  
He told Digg it was because of the holidays, that the other man deserved some time off to spend with his family. While Oliver wasn't sure if the former soldier believed him or not, Diggle hadn't pushed for more information. Whether that was because he had already said his peace and understood that Oliver was in no place to hear more or if he had just washed his hands of both the man and the vigilante, Oliver didn't question the silence too much, because it allowed him the freedom to slip through life undetected, his family too busy with their own demons, which seemed ever more potent this time of year, to continue fighting Oliver on his secrets and his reclusiveness, on his standoffish – even cold – behavior.   
  
Even as just Oliver Queen, the time lost should have been worrisome. After all, he didn't need a disguise to be dangerous... for either the people in his life or even himself. If nothing else, the past two weeks had proven that to Oliver. But these moments that he was missing – seconds, minutes, hours – weren't like those blackouts from his college years when he would wake up after a night of debauchery in a stranger's bed or a cold jail cell. Rather, every time Oliver suddenly found himself someplace without any knowledge of how he had gotten there, he was always outside of Felicity's apartment, and he inevitably found himself staying there as well. In fact, for the past two... perhaps three even (he really could no longer tell) nights, he didn't even bother to return home. Instead, he just... stayed outside her house.  
  
Oliver told himself that he was keeping vigil. What if he was wrong? What if Helena didn't die as a deserving casualty of the mob war she had started? What if his actions in nearly killing her were enough to break through the haze of hatred towards her father, turning her focus away from Frank and towards Felicity? She could already know who Felicity was: her last name, where she worked, where she lived, and all those things that Oliver should have known about Felicity but didn't. Even if it wasn't Helena, it could have been someone else. Although Oliver had firmly put Slade and Ivo back in the box where they belonged – after all, they were dead and, if not literally buried, he at least needed to put them to rest in his mind, the list of people who would want to hurt Felicity to get to him was far longer than Oliver was comfortable with.   
  
Digg had said that it was too dangerous for her to date the Hood but that Oliver Queen was safe now. His bodyguard had been referring to the emotional danger loving the two different parts of him could bring her and the physical danger of the list, but what Diggle had failed to consider was the unwritten list of people Oliver had crossed paths with while _dead_. Granted, if Oliver had his way, John Diggle would never know the true scope of his actions during those five years, but Digg knew about the scars, and he knew, at least on a surface level, about the Bratva. How he could even suggest that Oliver honestly bring Felicity into his life...?  
  
And yet.... What if he didn't?  
  
Putting aside everything Walter had told him, Oliver wasn't worried about Felicity's heart. He could be a cruel bastard, but he wasn't dismissing her pain, the pain he had caused her. Oliver was just realistic enough to know that Felicity was too good for him. She'd move on, she'd get over the hurt, and she'd find somebody who wouldn't pull her down into the darkness with him. And the chances were that she'd do so soon enough as well, because, while his old self never would have been able to admit such a truth, Oliver was well aware that a catch he most certainly was not. Even putting aside his mission, he was damaged. After the two weeks he had just spent locked inside his own deranged mind – the misery just compounding upon itself, Oliver could no longer deny that he was sick. And that's exactly what made him pause.  
  
Felicity wasn't the cure. She wasn't a fix-it or a band-aid. Being with her wouldn't solve his problems, but even giving her a fraction of himself for those few weeks had softened his edges. After that first night, Oliver had never again mentioned the island or anything else from his time away, yet he had talked to her – about surface stuff mainly but occasionally his friends and family, and, while they had never come close to addressing those matters, those people, those actions which haunted him, talking – talking _to her_ – had helped. It eased some of the pressure off of his chest, made him feel just that much less alone, enough so for him to wonder what it would be like if he did tell her. About all of it. About his father, and Yao Fei, and Slade. About Sara and Shado. About everything that happened to him after he left that godforsaken island... and why he eventually returned to it willingly.   
  
Two weeks ago, Oliver had known beyond a shadow of a doubt that such confessions would be the ultimate selfishness, but now...? Now, he wasn't so sure. Between his dreams and nearly seeing his own hands choke the life out of Felicity (whether it was a hallucination or not, it had _felt_ real), not to mention her own pained accusations of how his unwillingness to confide in her had hurt, Oliver wondered if he shied away from true emotional intimacy with Felicity, not to protect her, but to protect himself. If he went there with her and it didn't work out...? If she turned him away or three, six, eighteen months down the line realized that it was too much, that he was too much? That wasn't something Oliver was sure he could make it back from. And then there was also the concern that, if he continued down his current path, there would come a day rather quickly when he wouldn't even make it until tomorrow.   
  
And then who would protect the city? Right his father's wrongs? Look out for Thea, his mother, even Walter? Save Tommy from himself? Make amends with the Lance family?   
  
Who would be there to make sure that Felicity got the happiness she deserved?  
  
As Oliver stood in the shadows across the street from Felicity's brownstone – his leather clad back against a brick wall, his stance giving him the perfect sightline into her large, front, picture window, he found himself wondering what if he could actually do it? What if he could give himself completely to Felicity but manage to shield her from the crusade given to him by his father? What if Digg was right, and Felicity was the key to... everything? If he was a better man, he'd be a better brother, son, and friend. If he was a better man, then he'd be a better fighter. He'd have clarity and purpose when the weight of the list started to become too burdensome, and he lost focus of his goals. What if the pain of loving hurt less than the pain of being alone?  
  
“Son of a....”  
  
Without sparing the street even a passing glance, Oliver sprinted towards Felicity's townhouse, scolding himself the entire way. Those seconds it took him to cross the quiet road and grasp the lurking intruder around the collar dragged by. He could hear his heart beating in his ears, his pulse elevated, and Oliver rebelled against his own distraction. Who knows how long the unknown man had been watching, waiting, biding his time for the perfect opportunity to strike. While Oliver had been so wrapped up in his own confusion, he had failed in what should have been his only purpose for being outside of Felicity's apartment: keeping her safe. Instead, he had been allowing her nearness to comfort him, to chase away his darkest fears, and, in the process, he had allowed her to be in danger.   
  
Slamming the guy – or, actually, upon closer inspection, he looked more like a kid, but Oliver wouldn't dismiss a threat based upon size or age – anyone could shoot a gun, plant a bomb, and, when he had noticed the late-night presence, the other man had been messing with Felicity's car – against the side of building, Oliver demanded, “who sent you?”  
  
“My...,” the first time the stranger tried to talk, his voice came out so high and weak, he was forced to stop speaking for several seconds, attempting to regain his composure by swallowing a few times. With what was obviously an extremely dry mouth, he eventually stuttered, “my b-b-b-boss.”  
  
Forget wearing the boy down, he was already broken. Which was good, Oliver knew, because it meant that he was on a fool's mission – someone not important enough to know better than to talk. He'd be easy to get information out of, easy to deal with and dispose of, and Felicity must still be a low priority for whoever had sent the kid after her. Perhaps her life wasn't even in danger; maybe this was just a message.   
  
“You know, with just my hand,” Oliver told the other guy, “I could kill you.” While keeping him in place with just his left arm, he waved said hand in front of the trembling stranger. His words were calm, but they certainly didn't lack menace. Or promise. “I could snap your neck or crush your windpipe with very little effort at all. But then you couldn't give me the answers that I want.” Resting his right forearm against the kid's throat and pressing inward with enough pressure to make both breathing and talking difficult but not impossible, Oliver finished his threat, “and you're going to talk.”  
  
The rapid, acknowledging head shakes urged him on. “Who do you work for?”  
  
“A Mr... a Mr. Kline, technically, but I've never met him. I'm new. I just started. Pete just brought me in last week, and I won't move up the ranks until I prove myself first.”  
  
It was as he suspected, though Oliver didn't recognize either name. Was there a new player in town, or were these aliases? Then again, the boy might not even know his employers' true identities. While Oliver didn't sense that the kid was lying, that was possible as well – that the other man recognized his own weaknesses and used them to his opponent's disadvantage. That would be smart, but, if five years of doing everything he had to in order to survive had taught Oliver anything, it was how to read people, and the stranger before him just didn't seem smart enough to trick anyone, let alone analyze himself.   
  
“And is this how you're going to prove yourself – by going after Felicity Smoak?”  
  
The kid shrugged, laughing nervously... as if the answer to Oliver's question was obvious. “Well, yeah,” he admitted. In his agitation, Oliver shuffled his stance, ground his teeth together. “Her and everyone else.”  
  
His head snapped up from where he had been staring at the boy's neck. Eyes wide in shock and fear – just who else in Oliver's life was this Mr. Kline and Pete targeting?, he surged his arm up and in, practically lifting the other man off his feet so only his toes were brushing against the ground. Distantly, underneath the roaring in his own mind, Oliver knew that he needed to slow down. If he killed this guy now, he wouldn't find out the information he needed to keep Felicity, his family, and Tommy safe, but he couldn't focus. Despite the boy's obvious terror, he was also audacious in his pronouncements, like it didn't matter what Oliver did to him, because their fates were already sealed, like he was taunting him. And that pressure was back in his chest, making it impossible for Oliver to achieve a deep breath. The harder he tried to fill his lungs, the more they burned. While logically he knew that ending the stranger's life wouldn't solve anything, there was a part of Oliver that connected his sudden appearance with the panic he knew he was now experiencing, and, if he got rid of the threat the stranger posed, wouldn't that panic go away, too?  
  
“Hey.” A soft voice, a light touch. The voice made all the other noise stop, and the touch immediately eased his tension. It drifted from Oliver's left shoulder, down his back, and then slipped under the loose edge of his unfastened jacket. It stayed there, the heat searing and grounding him at once. His arms and gaze fell from the boy, but, otherwise, Oliver didn't move. For several moments, he couldn't see anything, but, eventually, his gaze focused, and what he found was a pair of delicate, bare feet and hundreds of loose, drifting papers.  
  
It rarely snowed in Starling City, but the winters there were still cold – far too cold for anyone to stand outside in December without shoes, without slippers or even socks. And, yet, those feet, those toes painted a bright, happy orange, were left exposed in their haste to reach him. They were soft; and they were small; and Oliver noticed that her second toes were longer than her first, distantly remembering that such a shape was supposed to be an omen of wealth and fame; and they were vulnerable.   
  
Breaking through Oliver's thoughts, he heard the kid cough. Then he started talking. “Hey, aren't you...?”  
  
She interrupted him. “Go home, Brandon. Go home and forget... whatever this was, or I'll tell your mom that you dropped out of school – again – _and_ got involved in another pyramid scheme. Again.”  
  
“But what about....”  
  
“Go.”  
  
The second time, the younger boy didn't argue. Instead, he just scrambled about for a couple of minutes in an attempt to pick up as many of his flyers as he could while Felicity's grace and patience remained. Oliver knew he was still there, but he ignored him, focusing on the hand she still rested along the small of his scarred back. Slowly, it fell away... only to tangle with his left hand and lead him away. Felicity walked slowly in front of him, their fingers tangled together, her touch gentle yet demanding. Not that he was going to fight her. As they walked by her car, for a few seconds, Oliver's eyes skipped to the fluttering piece of paper held down by one of her windshield wipers, but then he forced his gaze back to her.   
  
In her haste to get outside, to get to him, Felicity hadn't bothered to put anything on her feet, and, yet, she wore a robe. From underneath it, he could see the wide legs of her pajama pants ebbing and flowing with every step she took. They looked soft – not cotton, or flannel, but very Felicity. As was her robe, which was silk – an odd choice for December, but he knew its appeal. It was bright, and it was colorful, and Oliver was sure it was shrugged on over her pajamas and tied more as a shield than as a means of warmth. Her hair was loose and wavy, messy, and, as they stepped inside of her apartment, Oliver knew that, whatever had brought Felicity outside, she had come from her bed.   
  
The realization terrified and excited him, because how did she even know he was there? He was the one who was supposed to be able to read people, who moved silently and unobtrusively through both day and night, and yet there they were – hands still clasped together, standing in Felicity's dark living room as she watched him with unblinking eyes, while his gaze skittered around the space, seeing everything and yet nothing all at once. There was a menorah on the mantle and dreidel ornaments hanging from her potted palm, the apartment was blazing warm yet there was a small mountain of blankets piled on one end of the couch, and the entire place smelled like hot chocolate. In a matter of seconds, he had learned that Felicity Smoak was Jewish, that she was always cold, and what she preferred to drink on a winter's night, but Oliver had no idea how she had known he had needed her.   
  
And he did.  
  
“You were right,” he breathed out. Those first three words were difficult to say – not so much admitting them but physically getting his mouth to move. Once he started talking, though, Oliver found that he couldn't stop. “Diggle, he's my... Well, my mother hired him to basically be my glorified babysitter, but he's.... Anyway, that doesn't matter. What does is that he's ex-military, and he told me months ago that I was suffering from PTSD. I didn't want to listen to him anymore than I wanted to listen to you, but it was different, too, because his knowing didn't matter to me.”  
  
“But when I found out, I told Walter, and you didn't want your family to know.”  
  
He nodded at her summation, taking a step closer to her. Moving so that he was holding both of her hands, Oliver admitted, “at first, that's what I told myself it was about, how I justified spending time with you. If I could convince you that I was fine, then you'd tell Walter that you were wrong. But Walter had already watched me nearly choke my mother to death after waking from a nightmare.” Felicity gasped in astonishment, but she didn't pull away from him. She never once flinched at his touch. “You only confirmed his own conclusions.”  
  
“And now,” she wondered out loud. “Why are you here, Oliver? Why have you been standing outside my apartment for the past three nights?”  
  
He should have been surprised by her awareness, but he wasn't, and the Oliver from two weeks before would have been intimidated by her perceptive nature and her blunt questions, but the man he was in that moment was just grateful that she was giving him the time of day, that she had helped him outside minutes before without judgment, and that she hadn't called the police. “I missed you,” he went with the honest, bare truth, shrugging his shoulders in helplessness. “I kept you at arms length before, because I told myself you'd be safer that way, and, then, when you pushed me out of your life, I didn't fight you, because, again, I thought you'd be better off without me.”  
  
“So, what's changed?”  
  
“Nothing really,” Oliver confessed. “In fact, if anything, I'm worse now than I was just a few days ago, than yesterday. You saw for yourself just how out of control I've gotten.”  
  
“And yet you're here anyway,” Felicity pointed out, still pushing him for answers. “Why?”  
  
But Oliver switched tactics. Meeting her gaze, he whispered, “Walter told me that you've been sad.”  
  
“I was; I am.” It was that simple. No explanations, no excuses, no denial. “I was mad, too, but, after a few days, that turned into worry.” Squaring her shoulders, Felicity told him, “if you're just here because Walter made you feel guilty, and you've been working up the nerve to apologize before walking away again, then you can just....”  
  
“No,” he interrupted her. His quick, hard proclamation had Felicity's mouth snapping shut with an audible click. “I still don't think that I deserve you.” She moved to protest, but Oliver prevented her from talking by continuing to do so himself. “But staying away from you isn't keeping anyone safe, least of all you. I'm... losing it, Felicity.” He watched as she sank her teeth into her bottom lip as she listened to him patiently, squeezing his hands in reassurance, in encouragement. “Ever since... that night, things, my symptoms, have... escalated. I can't sleep without having nightmares, and it's not just remembering what happened to me, but my brain is twisting those memories around, making them worse, expanding upon them. I've watched you die so many times in the past two weeks that I... I refuse to willingly sleep. My flashbacks have progressed to hallucinations. I'm losing time. I don't trust myself.”  
  
“Oliver, I'm not... I don't know what you want from me.”  
  
He snorted derisively. “I want everything from you, Felicity, but I know I can't expect you to trust me again. So, I'm hoping that you'll at least consider being my friend. I know it didn't seem like much, but I've told you more about my time away... or at least how it has impacted me... than I have anyone else. I actually talk _with_ you, Felicity. I listen, and I share, and I like that you push me for more when, with everyone else, I just say what they want to hear, and that doesn't amount to anything.” Before she could say a word, before she could agree or disagree, Oliver added, “and I know this... you... aren't a solution to my problems, but it's all I'm ready for right now. The idea of talking to a stranger...? Felicity, I can't. But I trust you, and I miss you, and, while I can't promise you that I'll tell you everything, I can swear to you that I won't lie to you either. That I won't deny your place in my life, or hide from you, or use you. Not anymore, not again.”  
  
Once he fell quiet, Oliver thought Felicity would fill the stillness. She only ever seemed to be silent when someone else was speaking, but that wasn't the case. For several long, agonizing moments, she just watched him, her open and unshielded gaze dancing across his features. He could see her thinking about his words, considering his veracity. With every fiber of his being, Oliver yearned to fidget. With anyone else, he was always so still now, but Felicity made him feel off-balance... in a good way – in a way that reminded him that he was still very much alive, and human, and a man.   
“Lock the door, Oliver.”  
  
They were the last words he had been expecting to hear, and, frankly, he had no idea what they meant, but Oliver followed her directions. As he reached back behind his body, Oliver never allowed Felicity to break their stare. It was only when she turned around, still holding his one hand but now their arms were at an angle to accommodate such an arrangement, that she forced him to look away. He couldn't mourn the loss, however, because, as soon as Oliver realized it was gone, he also realized that she was pulling him along after her, wordlessly leading him deeper into her home. By the time they reached her darkened bedroom – the covers tossed restlessly aside, his confusion had been replaced with hope.  
  
“Felicity?”  
  
She let go of his hand to untie her robe. As she moved without rush, a small smile tipping up the corners of her mouth, Felicity told him, “I doubt it has escaped your notice that I'm kind of a stubborn person. Consequently, I enjoy defying expectations.”  
  
He was pretty sure he knew what she was implying, but just in case he was wrong.... “Felicity, I'm not a good man. I've lied, cheated, stolen. I've killed.”  
  
“After tonight, Oliver, I have no doubt about what you are capable of.” The frank declaration was accompanied by her robe being tossed aside. She then lowered her voice, though the proud angle of her chin and her squared shoulders screamed of confidence. “Or about your feelings for me.”  
  
He couldn't say them out loud, though he had no doubt that they would come – and probably soon – along with a lifetime of other confessions, but he could show her. Eating up the few feet of space between them, Oliver took her face in his hands and cradled it, taking her mouth under his in the very same movement. Felicity didn't hesitate to respond, igniting under his touch and parting her lips on a soundless gasp almost as soon as their mouths joined. As he tasted her, consumed her, possessed her, Oliver whispered the pads of his thumbs against the delicate bones of her cheeks, against her earlobes, against the drumming beat he found at her pulse points. It wasn't enough, though.  
  
It would never be enough.  
  
Without making a conscience decision, his hands dropped to her shoulders where he, without pause, pushed down the thin straps of her pajamas. Oliver's touch followed the straps down her arms, around her elbows, and then over her fine and fragile wrists and trembling hands. As soon as the fabric slipped past her last digit, the top of it fell to her waist, resting their impatiently low upon her hips while his hands retraced their former movements and then trailed down her sides, pausing only briefly to tickle the silk found at the undersides of her bare breasts. Beneath his touch, her ribs were rising rapidly and seemingly without rhythm, and somehow Oliver knew that his breathing was just as choppy, just as desperate. Without ever letting go of her mouth, he noted just how tiny she was, how vulnerable, his hands nearly encompassing her entire waist before they found the final barrier they sought. With one persuasive push, he set her romper cascading to the floor, leaving Felicity completely naked, waiting and willing, before him.   
  
It was only after Oliver was hovering above her, seated fully inside her tight, wet heat that he realized, while he had been undressing her, Felicity had been far from idle. His jacket was gone. Though he still wore his shirt – no doubt refusing to let go of Felicity long enough for her to remove it, it was rucked up high on his chest, bunched as far as it would go and uncomfortable under his arms. But he didn't care. That slight discomfort wasn't even noticeable, not really, not when Felicity's welcoming body was cradling his own, her knees pulled towards her chest and her legs pushed out, and up, and down against the mattress of her bed. Unable to recall unbuttoning his jeans or freeing himself from his boxer-briefs, Oliver knew that it must have been Felicity's touch which had readied him.   
  
Retracting his hips far enough so only the very tip of his cock remained inside of her, Oliver paused for a brief moment, swirling his hips, and then, with a snap, drove back home deep, and fast, and full. The moan the movement pulled from Felicity's lips was so loud that she was forced to rip their mouths apart. While she panted and begged, whimpered and praised – close, oh so close, to her orgasm, he latched onto her neck – at first, biting her with both aggressive and gentle nips and then soothing the sting with greedy laps of his tongue. She met his every thrust with a complimentary roll of her hips. It was fast and rough in its unpolished desperation, and Oliver wanted so much more than that with Felicity. He wanted to take his time. He wanted to taste her, tease her, cherish her, and memorize her. And he would. Because, as Oliver felt Felicity splinter apart around him, he realized that she was giving him the everything he wanted. That knowledge triggered his own release, and he roared in completion, chanting her name until he was breathless.  
  
Sometime later, Oliver surfaced from a level of peaceful haze he'd never quite managed to achieve before. Although he had to be suffocating in his heaviness, Felicity didn't seem to mind that he was laying on top of her, his head pillowed against her still heaving chest, his now only semi-hard cock still buried to the hilt inside of her. She whimpered when he started to pull away but still let him ago. He banished that disappointment quickly, however, when, as soon as he was standing at the foot of her bed, Oliver stripped off his shirt, using it to hastily clean them both, uncaring about what he would wear come morning. Or maybe, if he could could persuade her, the next afternoon.   
Seemingly convinced that he wasn't going anywhere, Felicity held out her hands in invitation, waiting patiently while he took a few seconds to strip off his boots and remaining clothes. Naked as the day he was born and surprisingly unworried about his scars – like he had told Felicity, he trusted her with his mind, so his body was no different, Oliver crawled back into bed with her, the two of them moving symbiotically as Felicity shifted to her side and Oliver wrapped himself around her. Although he couldn't see her face, he could feel her touch – fingertips dancing upon the hard muscles of the forearm he had wrapped snuggly around her waist, breath upon the shoulder he had curled beneath her head, and he occupied his own by running his fingers through her hair and caressing the smooth expanse of her lower abdomen.   
  
And, then, feeling more relaxed than he had been in... years, Oliver calmly, easily started talking. The words didn't hurt. In fact, it was a relief to share them – _with her_ , and, surprisingly enough, Oliver didn't feel like he was a burden to her in doing so; he felt like... her partner. “I wasn't alone on the island. Hell, I wasn't even alone on the life-raft that carried me to that hell. That purgatory. At least, not at first.”

 

…

 

She had worked late. Again. Honestly, Felicity was trying to get better at that. Be better, healthier. It was all in her attempt to be there for Oliver and, in a way, improve her own life as well. He'd never believe her, but... being with him, _dating him_ , and, yes, that's what they were really doing this time, was making her a better person as well. More well-rounded. He gave her something else in her life to love besides her job.  
  
It had been two months since she caved and allowed Oliver back into her life. Invited him into her bed. It wasn't always sunshine and roses. In fact, it was downright dark and twisty sometimes: when he pulled her inside those unscalable walls of his along with him, when he was physically hurting and there was nothing she could do about it. As Oliver had promised, he hadn't lied to her again, in part because there were times when Felicity didn't press him with questions she knew he wasn't ready to answer yet. But, still, it was enough... for now, because he did talk to her.   
  
In the middle of the night when they were sharing her bed, Oliver would tell her about his demons and fears, which, oftentimes, were sadly one in the same. And Felicity? She would listen, and she would hold him just that much tighter, and she would remind him that, while she hated what he had suffered through, she couldn't regret any of it either, because he survived. More than that, those five years from his past allowed him to now live in the present, and that's exactly what he was doing with her: living. And it wasn't in secret anymore either.  
  
They didn't flaunt their relationship. Even when Felicity had been hurt by the realization that Oliver was lying to the world about their connection, she had never wanted their faces splashed across the evening news or the local tabloids. Rather, instead, she had just needed some indication that what they shared was real and as important to Oliver as it was to her. Now, through experience, she realized that he showed her the place she held in his life through his honesty and vulnerability, by introducing her to those people he loved the most, by, in his own way, trying to take care of her.   
  
Surprisingly, he wasn't overtly protective or territorial. After finding him with his forearm pressed against her neighbor's idiot son's throat, Felicity had been worried that Oliver would see every person who approached her as a threat, but he didn't. He still had moments when he tried to shield her... like in her office that very first day, but she was finding that happening less and less the more they talked and opened up to one another. It was like, by addressing his triggers, Oliver slowly took back his control. Plus, she had shared with him the power of counting as well. Sure, Felicity used the trick to reign in her babbling and not a killer instinct, but, combined with deep-breathing exercises, of which they were both learning as they engaged in yoga together (Sexy but, still, exercise – ugh.), it seemed to help Oliver de-stress and calm down.   
  
They were also eating healthy as well. Psychology had never been Felicity's forte. Oh, she'd taken the requisite courses in both high school and college, but it was all gibberish to her. She liked facts and hard-science, while psychology, in her estimation, was all contradictory ideas and trained monkeys. She respected it, and she recognized its value and place in medicine, but she didn't understand it. So, no matter how many books she read on PTSD, besides listening, and being supportive and encouraging, and making his life better by improving both of their lifestyles, Felicity didn't know how else she could help Oliver.   
  
If she made it a point to eat three well balanced meals – unfortunately, including vegetables that weren't deep-fried, then so would Oliver. He spent nearly every night with her... even if he only showed up late to crawl into bed with her, so he was always there in the morning for breakfast, and, despite his insistence that he had absolutely no interest in a position at Queen Consolidated, he inevitably popped up there almost everyday, so they would have lunch together. Dinner was a little trickier given her penchant for working far later than she should and his various _responsibilities_ , but Felicity did her best to work around their schedules either by meeting him at Verdant with take-out or coordinating with Mr. Diggle who with sedate nods and nearly imperceptible smiles let her know that he was squarely in her corner when it came to Oliver's well-being.   
  
They went grocery shopping together, they cooked together, and she made him wash the dishes. Because she had read that caffeine was detrimental to Oliver and that he shouldn't drink coffee, she had willing started drinking herbal tea instead. It was horrid, and she sometimes (okay, so like every night) dreamt about coffee, but he was worth the sacrifice. And she urged him to actually _do_ things. They went to hockey games with Tommy; go-carting with Thea, because, let's face it, she needed the driving practice; and they were helping Digg build his nephew a ridiculously elaborate playset and fort in his sister-in-law's backyard. (Okay, so Oliver and Diggle worked, and Felicity ogled. And brought snacks and drinks. And picked out the colors. But, still, _doing things_.) It wasn't much. As Oliver had told her that night they really got together for the first time, she couldn't cure or fix him, and they both knew that, if he would seek professional help through counseling, and therapy, and medication, that his path to healing would be smoother and more direct, but it was enough. She was enough to at least help him help himself, and the steps Oliver was taking – the honesty, the fixing of her drippy shower-head and rattling ceiling fan, and the acknowledgment of his feelings – were enough to convince Felicity that, someday, he'd give her all of himself.  
  
Just because she had figured out his secret the day they met... and then proceeded to try and talk herself out of that knowledge for the next several weeks only to finally accept it as the truth the very moment she believed she was pushing him out of her life for good, that didn't mean that Oliver was aware of her mad Nancy Drew skillz. (And, yes, they were worthy of the 'z'.) And, until he was ready to share that last, final part of himself with her, she'd sit back and wait patiently, trusting Diggle to keep him safe... and maybe, discreetly, keeping tabs on him herself. Loosely. Through like... news-feeds, and police reports, and traffic cameras. That's all.   
  
… Which brought Felicity's thoughts _finally_ full-circle, because she hadn't meant to get lost – metaphorically-speaking, of course, since she hadn't once walked into a supply closet believing it to be the server room... since like her first week at QC – in code again. Her plan had been to head home at a reasonable hour (and not when her car was practically the last one remaining in the parking garage), eat something green and boring along with some kind of non-the-other-white-meat source of protein, and casually... _surf the web_. Now, though, it was well past dark, which meant she might have missed the best _waves_ , and, thanks to her newly-improved flexibility, Felicity would have been kicking herself if she wasn't speed walking towards her little, red Mini. With a quick flick of her thumb, she popped the locks and was sliding inside, keys at the ready to start her car and drive away.  
  
“Felicity.”  
  
Her hand spasmed, the keys fell, and she reached forward to squeeze the steering wheel in an effort to steady her now rapidly beating heart. “Stop doing that, Oliver,” she chastised him before even spinning around in her seat. Maybe it she wouldn't have been so startled – _again_ , Felicity would have realized how strange it was that her boyfriend was in the backseat of her car without her. Not that they had yet to make use of her car's backseat, because it was a Mini, and Oliver was definitely a full-sized kind of guy. Plus, they weren't sixteen. Thank god. But, still, the only logical explanation for Oliver being in her backseat was if she was with him. But she wasn't. So, yes, back to her point: she should have realized it was strange. But time (and her body) didn't move slow enough to allow her mind to work its way through all her thoughts – _so many thoughts_ , so Felicity was perhaps unduly surprised by what she found when she twisted around to look behind her.  
  
At least temporarily.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
And then she was horrified, because Oliver was bleeding. Profusely. All over her _leased_ car... which so wasn't the point. Tentatively, she reached a hand out towards him... as though, by touching his wound alone, she could heal it. If it wasn't such a natural instinct, Felicity would have felt ridiculous. As it was, she still felt helpless – and annoyed, because, if she would have been at home and... _surfing_ , maybe she could have seen something that would have prevented this situation from happening.   
  
“Were you stabbed?”  
  
“Shot,” he answered succinctly, gritting his teeth through the pain in order to address her questions – some voiced, some, apparently, evident without Felicity having to put words to them. “Here.”  
  
“Here as in my car, or here as in at Queen Consolidated.”  
  
“QC.” With every syllable he uttered, Oliver's breathing became more labored. Realizing that her curiosity could be sated later... you know, after she made sure Oliver _didn't die on her_ , Felicity spun back around and blindly searched the floorboard beneath her for her keys. It was only once she had them in hand that Oliver offered up another little tidbit of information. “By my mom.”  
  
The keys slipped from her grasp, and Felicity flinched in sympathy, banging her head against the steering wheel and her knees against the dash. “Mother Trucker,” she swore...ish. It was the result of the combination of Oliver's life-shattering revelation and her own discomfort that it had caused. However, Felicity didn't allow for the moment of distraction to stretch. She, for the second time, found her keys and had her car started and shifted into reverse within a matter of seconds.   
  
It was only as she was practically going air-born off the exit ramp that Oliver finally spoke again. “You can't take me to the hospital, Felicity.”  
  
“It'd be quicker,” she argued. When he went to protest, she kept talking over top of his already weak from blood-loss and pained voice. “And it's exactly what Moira deserves. I'd love to see her face when the cops came to arrest her for shooting her own son. But you'd be in the cell right next to her, and I think even a foundry is a better option for you than a prison infirmary. Besides, I've verified Digg's credentials. While he's not classically educated, I'm not sure that I wouldn't take a combat tested vet with medic training over a sheltered, namby-pamby Ivy-leaguer any day. I never could stand those Harvard boys.” She paused, needing to regather her thoughts. Where was she...? “Anyway, yeah. In Digg, I guess, I have to trust.”  
  
As they approached a red light and Felicity started to slow down – unfortunately, it wasn't just changing from yellow, so she couldn't blow through it and use the excuse that it was too late for her to brake, Oliver expended his last shred of energy to whisper, “you knew.”  
  
She met his half-lidded, weary, pain-filled gaze in her rearview mirror and smiled gently, serenely. Despite the situation they found themselves in, Felicity knew everything was going to be alright, because, well, it just had to be. They hadn't come this far, separately and together, for her to lose Oliver now – not when he was finally sharing all of himself with her. Rather than confirm what he had already realized to be the truth – that she had known about his secret identity for months now, Felicity recognized his trust and returned it to him in the most powerful and important way she possibly could. “I love you, too, Oliver.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **[VISUALS](https://www.pinterest.com/oycharlynnrose/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words-fic-visuals/)** \-- But be forewarned that I work ahead, so spoilers abound. 


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